


Run Like the Devil

by benzos



Series: Run Like the Devil [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Bad Dads, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossroads Deals & Demons, Demon Harry, Demons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Hell, Homophobia, Hunter Louis, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Internalized Homophobia, Louis-centric, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Revenge, Supernatural Elements, Trauma, completely incompetent weirdo crossroads demon harry, enemies to begrudging allies to lovers to enemies to friends and round and round we go, in case you're wondering: no dark harry within
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:49:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 138,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6625750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benzos/pseuds/benzos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry stops pouting, but his frown is still fixed in place. “Are you sure?” he asks. “You know it’s your soul you’re signing away.” He sounds…sad? No, that’s not right, but there’s <em> something. </em></p><p><em> Christ. </em>This is the most incompetent demon Louis’ ever met. If he hadn’t seen the red of his eyes he wouldn’t believe he was a demon at all. How’d he get this job if he isn’t trying to convince Louis to deal? Or is it just another trick? A ploy for sympathy?</p><p>“I’m sure,” Louis says. “Come over here and kiss me.”</p><p>*</p><p>Supernatural AU. Louis hunts demons; Harry's the strangest demon he's ever met, and he <i>keeps fucking meeting him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Run Like the Devil](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9699971) by [vikasemenova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vikasemenova/pseuds/vikasemenova)



> Hi! This is my first time posting a WIP (I'm a big ol' control freak and want things to be PERFECT and FINISHED before I show them to anyone, which is irritating) so I'm kinda nervous, but I wanted to put some feelers out and see if other people would enjoy this project. I've got everything plotted and a good chunk of it written, but if left to my own devices I'll probably obsess over it for two years, by which time every 1D will have married a German royal and/or gone to space, or something. Who knows. 
> 
> Anyway! Please, please, if you can, tell me what you thought by commenting here or hitting me up on tumblr (churchrat) or twitter (lesbianalmighty) or, uh, smoke signal or whatever. Thanks so much in advance! I'm really excited about this story and I hope other people will be too.

“So,” Louis says, without removing the plastic straw from between his teeth. He catches Liam’s slight eyebrow-raise and makes sure to slurp loudly before he continues, “Remind me again why we’re here?”

Liam rolls his eyes. “Louis. I told you like six times. Is there booze in that milkshake?”

“I wish,” Louis says, mournfully, as the straw splits under his chewing. The milkshake is good, but not great: somewhere in the middle of his mental milkshake score sheet (so far, nothing beats the strawberry at Sal’s). Where are they, again? He glances out the window—right, California. Palo Alto, to be specific. He’d been too busy rattling off lines of dialogue from  _The Social Network_ to pay much attention to Liam saying  _hey check this out_ and pointing at his laptop. He takes another sip, pondering. A drop of milkshake leaks out of the split in the straw and lands on his thumb.

“Louis!”

“I’m paying attention,” he says, taking his thumb out of his mouth. “Hit me. Weird shit. What do we got? Suspicious deaths?”

“Sort of.” Liam grimaces. “A couple of reports of, like, huge dogs or maybe bears roaming around. This one kid was going off on the news about werewolves.”

“Werewolves?” Louis hates werewolves. Pain right in the ass to kill, and not monsters all the time. Monsters enough, though. Zayn used to get weird about them, too, for some reason he refused to let on.

“I don’t think so.” Liam’s brow furrows, his lips forming a concentrated pout, and he pulls a stack of papers out of his bag. Thank god for Liam’s perfectionism and Louis’ ability to distract Staples employees. They make a good team. “Here, look at this obit.” He shoves a paper in front of Louis’ face. A reedy, shifty-looking man smiles back at him. Louis scans the article—valued member of the community, born in Weed, California—Louis snorts—worked at a motel all his life until becoming a successful tech entrepreneur overnight, hit it big in Silicon Valley when he was 30. Died at 40. Mauled to death by some kind of animal in his living room, according to the police report Liam shows him next. No sign of an intruder.

“Hellhounds, then,” Louis says, somewhat unnecessarily. “Alright, so this guy made a deal. You think there’s a crossroads demon dealing around here?” He gestures out the window. For all that Silicon Valley is supposed to be high-tech and wealthy, he’s found it pretty grungy so far. “Not unlikely, actually. Aren’t we near Stanford, too?”

“At least there was one ten years ago. I don't know if they’re, like, in charge of specific locations. I called Niall and he gave me a really long answer that I think meant sometimes yes and sometimes no, so I still don’t know. And yeah, other side of town. Why?”

“Okay,” Louis says, dipping a fry in ketchup. He gets a little on his chin and doesn’t wipe it, just to see Liam’s wince. “So. Hellhounds still here even though whatsisface is in the pit. You think someone else made a deal?”

“Evan. Stanford was where Zayn was going, wasn’t it?” Liam’s features are starting to edge towards concerned. Louis shouldn’t have brought it up.

“Yeah, it was. I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, and takes another loud slurp of his milkshake with a note of finality.

Liam looks at him for a moment. “I’m sure someone else made a deal, yeah; you don’t get this kind of money in one place without someone buying souls, right?” He grimaces. “The question might be who  _hasn’t_ made a deal.”

“Are you—“

“Going to the library, yes, and probably the police station. Stations, maybe.” Liam pushes his salad across the table with a filthy look at the wilted leaves. “I assume you’re not coming with.”

Liam’s right, but Louis resents the implication anyway. “Okay,” he says. “I guess I’ll just sit on my ass in the motel and watch  _Days of Our Lives._ Or wait,  _General Hospital_ is on, isn’t it?”

“That’s not what I meant, Louis.”

“Joking! Sheesh!” He raises both palms, which makes Liam frown more. “Jesus Christ, you’re in a mood today. ’m gonna take a walk around, talk to some people, see what I can see. Catch you later.”

He tosses a twenty onto the table, smiles at their waitress on their way out, and pulls the collar of his jacket up around his neck, even as the sun prickles at his skin. He drops Liam at the library and then cranks up the stereo, rolling the windows down and leaning into the wind.

By late afternoon, he’s sunburnt, annoyed with the traffic, and has gotten exactly nowhere. He’s sure Liam will have some kind of lead—he won’t necessarily admit it, but the skills Liam has as a former detective are actually marginally more useful than Zayn’s bookworm tendencies, which leant themselves more toward  _I found this drawing of this monster from the 15th century with a cryptic poem written in Latin that might mean we have to kill it with a bronze dagger_ than  _I know where we need to go_ —but it’s not like a one-street town, and tracking down this guy’s relatives had been a bust.

Fucking rich people, with their goddamn gated mansions and 24-hour security guards. It’s a good thing for them he hates demons more, or else he wouldn’t bother.

His phone buzzes against his thigh: Liam asking him to pick him up, he’s sure. No one else has this number anyway, except Niall. Louis’ life is small; he’s used to it, most of the time, but every now and then the realization knocks the breath out of him.

“Hey, Li,” he drawls, pushing the thought out of his mind. Better not to dwell on it. “Any leads?”

“Maybe,” Liam says. He sounds exhausted and a little grouchy. Louis wonders if there’s anywhere in Palo Alto he could hustle pool. There’s got to be, right? He’s restless and twitchy from getting nowhere all day, and the four o’clock sun is shining right in his eyes, sharp and white. Fucking California. Louis’ going to insist they go up to Washington after this, somewhere where it’s cool and damp and the sun isn’t so hostile.

“What does maybe mean?” Louis prompts, taking a right turn and sighing in relief now that the sun's mostly blocked out by the Camaro's frame.

“It means maybe,” Liam says. “Maybe Mark fucking Zuckerberg made a demon deal, who the fuck knows.”

“He planted the chicken.”

Liam laughs. The speakers crackle. “I hate you. How far away are you?”

“Maybe five minutes. Y’wanna get food?”

They get a grand total of nowhere; there’s too much wealth and improbable success here to make a decent guess about who’s being circled by hellhounds. Back at the motel, Liam keeps tapping away, hunched over his laptop, a set to his shoulders that says he’ll work all night and be a total bitch tomorrow. After five flip-throughs of Troy’s journal prove fruitless (as Louis might’ve known they would; he practically has the thing memorized), he slams it shut, a little violently, and picks up his keys from the bedside table.

It’s a good thing they’d picked up supplies from Niall’s not long ago—Louis’ still not entirely sure how to go about getting a bone from a black cat, and shudders at the idea of having to try. Niall assures him his are all “ethically sourced,” whatever the fuck that means. Yarrow, graveyard dirt, and a photo of himself—all easy. The box is ready in less than five minutes. He feels a little itchy. Nothing to do but go, now, he supposes.

“Going for a drive,” he tells Liam at the shitty little motel desk, now rubbing his eyes every few minutes. He gets a grunt in reply, which is either very good or very bad for their research prospects. Regardless, Louis’ sick of waiting around with his thumbs up his ass. Proverbially, that is.

There’s a good crossroads a bit outside of town: two straight, two-lane roads intersecting, nothing inhabited nearby. It’s not quite dark yet—his timing’s good. The trunk of the Chevy squeaks in protest when he opens it. He’ll have to take a look at it later. For now, he lugs a can of paint out and gets to work.

It’s still dusk when he finishes the Devil’s trap. It's better to wait for full darkness, generally speaking, so the demon's less likely to notice the paint. Liam hasn’t texted, which is good. Maybe he should call Niall to catch up. That would be a bad idea, though—just thinking about it makes his chest feel a little hollow from missing him, which is stupid, since he’d seen Niall less than two weeks ago.

After a while, he decides to just sit in the car and wait. He shuffles through the CDs in the glovebox—Liam can shut the fuck up, CDs are  _fine,_ and no he _doesn’t_ need to update his collection or get a goddamned  _iPhone—_ and picks one at random.  _So Much For The Afterglow:_  that’ll work. He gets properly into it after a couple of songs, singing along progressively louder, but soon realizes it’s closing in on pitch black outside.

He leaves the car running and the headlights on, pointing away from the Devil’s trap but giving him some ambient light to work with. The dirt is dry and crumbles in his hands. California’s in a drought, he remembers. He’s got a shovel in the trunk, which he should probably get, but even without it, it’s easy work to dig a big enough hole to bury the little box and cover it back up.

Right. That’s that done. He just has to wait. He wipes his hands on his shirt (Liam’s, actually) and straightens up to wait; he thinks absently about the cheeseburger he’s going to get when they finish this hunt, and opens the caterpillar game on his flip phone. Maybe he can beat his high score.

“Hiiiii,” a deep, slow voice drawls from behind him, and he jumps. He shouldn’t startle this easily, for Christ’s sake. Rolling his eyes at himself and squaring his shoulders, he turns around.

He’s met plenty of crossroads demons before. Every single one has taken the form of some young, tall, gorgeous woman. He supposes it’s a good business model for most customers ( _people,_ he reminds himself,  _people selling their_ souls), if not for him. This, though—this somehow delicate, gangly, awkward  _boy_  ( _not quite a man, not yet,_ he thinks absently) with a strange, pigeon-toed stance and a wide grin and dimples—makeshis throat feel a little dry.

He coughs, takes a step, stumbles on a stray rock, and finds himself flat on his ass.

“Oops,” he says, momentarily stunned. What is  _wrong_ with him? A long-fingered, heavily ringed hand with a smooth, broad palm is offered to him, and after a moment’s hesitation (he’s playing a role, here, he reminds himself) he takes it. It’s warm and dry and when he touches it, something warm and strangezips down his arm, up his spine, and spreads throughout his body. He’s probably blushing. What the  _fuck._ He knows these demons are manipulative, but most of the ones he’s met keep it to words. This is something else, something more dangerous. 

“Y’alright there?” the demon—demon, yes, no red eyes yet, hiding behind the human ones, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come out—drawls, and Louis finds himself upright before he knows it.

“Thanks,” he says.

“’s no trouble, love.” He’s some kind of British, voice deep and slow and precise. His mouth is really pink. Louis very fleetingly thinks about what it might look like kiss-bitten and red, or wrapped— _no,_ he scolds himself _, he’s a friggin’ demon, do NOT start with the sex fantasies._ Could he be an incubus too? Is that even possible? It would explain why Louis’ all of a sudden thinking with his dick while he's on a job. “Here, hang on—“  _Fuck._ One of the demon’s big hands reaches around to touch Louis’ ass, sweeping the dirt off.

Louis is going to die. He’s pretty sure his brain has leaked out of his ears, and he shakes his head hard, half-expecting pink sludge to fly out when he does.

 _Right._  Demon. Devil’s trap.

“I heard I could find you here,” he says, in his best unsure-first-time-summoner voice. He does an okay job, he thinks. “I mean. You’re, um, you’re who—“ He racks his brain for a moment. “—Evan told me about?”

The demon’s grin falters a little, and his eyes flash red for a moment. Right. Louis’ got his head back on. Temporary insanity brought on by him not having gotten laid in months, that's all it was. They’ll swing through to San Francisco after they finish this job and he’ll get it out of his system. This is a dangerous, evil supernatural creature whose sole purpose is to collect human souls for eternal damnation. Plus, he’s occupying some helpless human Louis will have to take care of after sends this bastard back to Hell.

“Evan,” the demon says. “I remember Evan.”

Louis has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping  _I’m sure you do._ “Yeah, we used to work together for a bit. Fell out of touch, though. Hope he’s well.” The demon frowns even more, and that’s not—that’s not normal, is it? He should look smug. “What’s your name?” he asks.

The demon blinks at him a few times. “Harry.” He doesn’t ask for Louis’, so he’s not going to get it.

Louis clears his throat. “So…”

“Right,” says the demon— _Harry,_ now, but still a demon. “What can I do for you? Anything at all, love.” That purring, seductive tone is back, sending involuntary shivers down Louis’ spine. “You want to be rich? Famous? Brilliant? Do you want—” He sidles a step closer to Louis, somehow awkward and hot at the same time. “—to be wanted? You want someone to love you? You want  _everyone_ to love you? Name it, babe.”

Louis swallows. His throat is sandpaper-dry. “Um. I was—I always wanted to be an actor, see.” Best to stick closer to the truth in a situation like this. It sticks a little in his throat, still.

“Hmmm,” Harry says. “I can make that happen. But—“ He tilts his head, long hair shifting to expose the glint of an earring. “—I’m sensing some really powerful loneliness. Are you sure that’s all you want?”

Louis frowns and turns around, walking away from Harry and toward the Devil’s trap as if he’s changed his mind.

“Hey, wait,” Harry calls, and he sounds—scared? Different. Young. When Louis looks over his shoulder, he sees the strangeness of his gait, the way his limbs all seem a little too long for him.  _His host’s limbs,_ he reminds himself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you off.”

Is this—Louis’ head is spinning. Is this demon looking bashful? Demons don't get bashful. 

Harry  _is,_ though, coming to a halt and standing a little pigeon-toed in his brown boots. Louis can see him better like this, half-lit by a headlight. His hair falls to his shoulder, chestnut brown and glossy, and his eyes—his _host’s_ eyes—are a light, clear green, almond-shaped and big. He’s got a few pimples dotted around the edges of his face, barely any facial hair, a truly ridiculous shirt on—blue lace, sheer enough to see skin peeking through, unbuttoned down to the center of his chest, with two big—

“Are those parrots,” Louis asks, suddenly, “on your shirt?”

Harry’s ( _host’s,_  he reminds himself,  _host's)_ face scrunches for a moment, and then he smiles, dimples popping. Great. A demon with fucking dimples. Or rather, a demon wearing someone with dimples. “Yes,” he says. “It’s Gucci.”

“Okay,” Louis says. Okay. Back on track. He walks a little further, and Harry follows him, his gaze intense and unblinking. It’s unnerving, even with human eyes. Louis’ skin prickles. “I’m—you want my soul, right?”

Harry chews on his lip for a second. “That depends,” he says, and it sounds like he’s considering every word very carefully before he says it. “What do you want?”

For half a second, Louis imagines saying  _my family back._ That’s too—that’s too vulnerable, though, something he might not be able to turn down if it's offered, as thrown off as he is by the awkward-charming-hotness of this demon he’s summoned.  The demon he’s going to exorcise, given he can get him inside the Devil’s trap.  _It’s a trick,_ he reminds himself.  _It’s always a trick._   _The only way to win is to trick them back._

He takes a few more steps, and Harry follows, still a few feet from the trap.  _Just a little more._

Harry’s still staring at him, unblinking. His brows are knitting together, a deep crease appearing between them. “I asked what you wanted.” He sounds...petulant. It’s not what Louis’ used to hearing from demons. Harry actually seems offended at Louis’ lack of manners. It almost makes him giggle. _What the fuck?_

“I want,” Louis blurts out, before he can stop himself, “I want you to kiss me.” He’s still walking; his body, at least, seems to be with the program.

Harry’s brow furrows even further. “That’s usually how deals are signed, yes,” he says, slowly. “But we haven’t made a deal yet. You didn’t say what you wanted.”

“Neither did you,” Louis points out.  _Come on. Closer._

“You summoned me,” Harry snaps.

“Are you—are you  _pouting?”_

“No,” Harry says, but his lower lip is definitely jutting out, pink and shiny.

“Were you doing something important?” Louis snorts.

“It was getting to the good part in my book,” Harry grumbles.

Demons read books? Louis supposes they must get up to something when not murdering, but he hasn’t thought about what. He’d assumed it was some other kind of evil thing. Maybe hanging out with their demon buddies, torturing small animals and shit like that.

It doesn’t matter,god, he’s on a job. He clears his throat and gives a nervous giggle that feels a little too honest. “Right, well, I want to be rich and famous, win a gazillion Oscars, you know, the whole package.”  _Just a little further, c’mon._

Harry stops pouting, but his frown is still fixed in place. “Are you sure?” he asks. “You know it’s your soul you’re signing away.” He sounds…sad? No, that’s not right, but there’s  _something._

 _Christ._ This is the most incompetent demon Louis’ ever met. If he hadn’t seen the red of his eyes he wouldn’t believe he was a demon at all. How’d he get this job if he isn’t trying to convince Louis to deal? Or is it just another trick? A ploy to get Louis’ guard down?

“I’m sure,” Louis says. “Come over here and kiss me.”

It takes a moment, but Harry takes the last few long strides Louis needed him to.

“Okay,” Harry breathes, and he’s practically on top of Louis now, hot breath blowing a few strands of Louis’ hair into his eyes. He leans in, eyes slipping shut. He looks oddly delicate like this, not at all like he should—Louis can see the veins in the thin skin of his eyelids, the light purple circles beneath, the flare of his nostrils. Louis starts to move into it. Wants to know what Harry’s mouth tastes like.

 _Like human souls and some poor sucker’s body,_ his brain shrieks, and Louis jumps backward, stumbling over himself to get away.

Harry tries to follow, but he’s held back, unable to move past the edge of the circle. Realization spreads over his face, twisting the corners of his mouth down and narrowing his eyes.

“Is this really necessary?” He sounds exasperated more than anything else.

“Sorry,” Louis says, and takes a deep breath. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas—“

“This is just…” Harry throws his hands in the air. Louis keeps chanting, but it doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. Powerful demons are always trickier. Louis should go get the holy water. Maybe he should’ve brought Liam, after all. Harry’s talking again. “It’s rude, is what it is. You set me up.”

Louis pauses the incantation, unable to resist. “I  _set you up?_ Buddy, you were about to buy my soul.”

“Not necessarily,” Harry says, loudly over Louis’ chanting, and then, “It’s my job _,_ ” like he’s some fucking DMV employee and Louis is complaining about red tape.

Louis bristles, properly, and stops the incantation. Harry’s attitude is making his skin prickle. Fuck demons. He fucking hates them. “Your job that gets innocent people sent to Hell," he spits. Harry shouldn’t be able to get a rise out of him this easily, shouldn’t be able to distract him from the task at hand. Louis may have to gag him.

“I don’t force anyone to make deals,” Harry says, definitely getting angry now. Good. Exorcism goes faster if the demon’s agitated. “They summon me.  _You_ summoned me. It’s not like I go out on the town hunting for souls to buy.” His mouth twists unpleasantly. “Although I think my boss wishes I would, to be honest.” His little chuckle is hollow.

Louis suddenly feels a pang of sympathy and forgets the next line he’s supposed to say.  _What the fuck,_ he thinks. Definitely some kind of supernatural ability, he decides. That’s concerning; he’ll ask if Niall’s heard anything about demons being able to  _create_ emotions.

He shakes it off, like an irritating mosquito. “Sorry, bud. Not really an excuse.”

“You know exorcising me doesn’t release anyone from their contracts, right?”  _Ah. Here we go._

“I know,” Louis says. “But I have a feeling you don’t really want to go back downstairs—“ Harry’s eyes flash red briefly. “—and tell your boss you got your ass handed to you by some puny little hunter.”

“You are puny,” Harry says, his tone flat. “I don’t want to go back to Hell at all, if it’s all the same to you. You ever been down there?” He’s quiet and still; Louis knows he’s incapacitated by the Devil’s trap, but it suddenly occurs to him what an immense and powerful being he’s talking to. Was about to kiss just ‘cause he wanted _to._

“No.” Louis is pretty sure that’s where he’s headed one of these days, the next time he tries something stupid and risky and doesn’t get lucky and skirt it at the last second, but he’s not about to tell that to this  _fucking_ demon.

“Don’t go,” Harry says. “It’s horrible.”

“Thanks for the friendly advice,” Louis snaps. He really should’ve brought holy water. A little pain would be useful. “Shut the fuck up.”

Harry sighs, and holds his hands up in supplication. “Look,” he starts, “what do you want from me?”

“I want you to release whoever your mutts are sniffing around from their deal.” Louis rolls his eyes.  _Obviously._

Harry tilts his head, his face scrunching slightly. “You don’t even know who you’re talking about? Why do you care?”

Had he waited a day, Louis thinks, they’d probably have figured that out. Oh well. He’s here now; besides, there's no guarantee the hounds wouldn't have dragged whoever it was to Hell already if he'd been patient. “It doesn’t matter. I know it’s someone, and I know you can.”

“I could _,_ but it would raise eyebrows at work.” Louis thinks he sees Harry’s eyes change, but it’s too quick to tell, and Harry’s got his back to the headlights, obscuring his features into shadowy gestures.

“Oh, Heaven forbid.” Louis rolls his eyes. He’s caught in the glare, and Harry can see his every expression. It puts Louis at a distinct disadvantage; he’s never been that good with concealing his emotions.

“Hey,” Harry snaps. “Don’t act like you know what that means.”

Louis takes deep breath and schools his face into impassivity. “Sounds like you do, though.  _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te…”_

The chant is familiar—not comforting, but routine, mindless—and Louis is determined to keep at it and not to let Harry unsettle him any more than he already has.

Harry begins to squirm on the third go-around, wincing like he’s in pain. Still no smoke, but Louis’ got all night.

He tells Harry so, after the seventh repetition, which has Harry wincing and fidgeting, occasionally coughing up tiny clouds of smoke.

Louis starts the eighth. " _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas—"_

“Alright, alright,” Harry grits out, doubled over slightly and panting. A silver cross pendant hangs from a long chain. Huh. That’s new; Louis’d kind of assumed demons avoided crucifixes as a matter of course. “Fine. Deal’s off as long as you let me out of this fucking thing.”

“Done,” Louis says, his voice a little tender.

He waits. Would he be able to see a deal being broken? He’s never gotten a crossroads demon to give in before, just sent clouds of black smoke into the scorched ground and called it a day: a good one if the host made it out alive, a bad one if not. He waits a little longer. He’s not going to give up his bargaining position, here. If Harry doesn’t hop to it, he’ll start chanting again.

Harry shifts back and forth for a moment, crossing one boot oddly over the other. “Not quite,” he mumbles, just as Louis' about to continue the exorcism. “You have to kiss me to seal it.”

“Oh, really _?”_ Louis can’t believe that. It’s got to be a trick—Harry can’t use his powers inside the trap, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be packing a weapon of some kind. It would be idiotic to get near him.

He can’t quite see Harry’s face, but he appears to be pouting again. “’s the rules,” he says, shoulders hunching inward, like he’s trying to make himself smaller. “Can’t do a deal without it.”

“I’m not selling you my soul, though,” Louis points out.

“Doesn’t matter.” Harry shrugs. “It’s all contracts. It’s like a handshake, or a signature. Same thing.”

“Really?”  _It sort of makes sense,_ he allows himself to think.  _Still probably a trick, though._

Harry sighs. “Bureaucracy doesn’t confine itself to one plane of existence, unfortunately. I’m not trying to pull one over on you, I swear. I just want to go home.”

That startles a laugh out of Louis. “Big plans? Got a hot date?”

“Not your business,” Harry grumbles.

“Demon stuff?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

Harry groans. “Could we just get this done with?”

“C’mon, what are you getting back to? I’m not gonna let you out if you’re just going to go eat some kids or something.”

Harry gives him an absolutely filthy look, and Louis pats himself on the back a little for getting a rise out of this evil fuck (which he  _is,_ appearances and strangely vulnerable mannerisms aside). “I would  _never,”_ he says, low and serious and dangerous enough to send an involuntary shiver singing down Louis’ spine. “I don’t hurt children.”

 _Sure you fucking don’t._ “Alright, then. Sheesh, sensitive, aren’t you?”

Harry studies him for a long moment. “If you must know, my plans for tonight were to deep condition and spend some time with my book. Maybe a face mask.” He spreads the fingers of one hand and moves it horizontally like he’s imagining a billboard. “Demons: we’re just like you.”

“Only eviler,” Louis adds, chewing on the inside of his cheek against the way the corner of his mouth ticks up.

Harry bristles for a split second, and then visibly deflates. “Seriously. I just want to go home. Let’s get this over with.”

He waves his hand in a little  _come here_ motion. The inside of Louis’ mouth dries up in what seems like two seconds flat, like his tongue is made of cotton balls. He has to consciously gather spit in his cheeks before he can respond. He definitely doesn’t casually check how his breath smells (still sort of minty). “Okay. I believe you, I guess. You’ll call off your mutts?”

“Swear to god,” Harry says, and then his mouth twists into a wry smile. “Or, well. Swear on something. My own grave, how about?”

 _Oh._ Louis forgets, sometimes, that demons were once human. He wonders, briefly, what Harry was like when he was a person—where was he from? When was he from? Did he have a family? What sent him to Hell?—and then shakes his head.  _Stupid._ What the fuck is he doing, sympathizing with a damn demon?

Freshly determined, he kicks up gravel as he walks to where Harry’s standing, one hip cocked, in the middle of the Devil’s trap. He’s careful not to disturb the paint, and holds his breath as he enters the circle; there’s really nowhere in Harry’s ridiculous outfit to hide a knife or gun, but better safe than sorry. Or rather, better cautious than dead.

Harry’s got a good few inches on him, up close. Louis doesn’t like that. He decides to even the ground by yanking on Harry’s—probably disgustingly expensive—shirt and pulling them together, slamming their lips into a bruising, dry kiss before Harry can get a word or a movement in edgewise; he does make a startled noise, and in his peripheral vision, Louis sees his hands go up as if to wrap around Louis’ neck. Louis wrenches back before they find their destination and harshly scrubs his forearm over his lips, hard enough that they go mostly numb. He takes long steps backwards, and considers, for a moment, just leaving Harry there—he unsettles Louis, gets under his skin in a crawling, stinging, buzzing way, like fire ants only not quite painful, exactly,and Louis wants to do something that will make him feel firmly back in control.

But, he supposes, he’s not intimately familiar with the rules of demon deals, and hopping back in the car and screaming away with Harry still immobilized in the Devil’s trap definitely runs the risk of Harry not keeping up his end of the bargain. Louis’ pithy feelings are immaterial; there’s a life at stake. A soul.

Quickly, he crouches down to the pavement, unsheathes the knife in his boot, and scratches at the paint until there’s a gap all the way through the outer edge of the circle. He stands straight back up, knife clutched in a white-knuckled grip, since it’s all too likely Harry will try something once he can use his demon powers—another reason Louis really should’ve waited for Liam, although he’s bizarrely relieved no one witnessed that whole exchange—but even after he blinks one, two, three times, scans his surroundings twice, there’s nothing there. Harry’s just gone.

He should probably clean up the whole trap—it would be a pain in the ass to get picked up for satanic graffiti—but he’s itching to get out of here and back to the motel. He might even try and convince Liam to drive north tonight so he can go out and get fucked up. Hopefully fucked as well.

It seems luck is on his side, for once, when he doesn’t get pulled over on the way back to town even though he’s doing a solid 20 over the speed limit the whole way.

“Job’s finished,” he says, when he gets back to the motel. The door snicks shut behind him, fairly quietly.

Liam doesn’t respond for close to a minute; he’s  _in the zone_ , as he calls it and Louis routinely mocks him for. Louis waits for the snap of the laptop closing and the guttural sound that accompanies Liam’s stretching.

Sure enough: “What?” Liam says, still turning his neck back and forth and rolling his shoulders. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said the job’s finished.” The bag drops to the floor with a sharp  _clank._ The air conditioner, which had been humming when he’d left, is wheezing alarmingly. Louis shivers, and unlaces his boots, tossing them somewhere where Liam will be sure to stumble over them in the morning.

“Uh,” Liam says. “Care to elaborate?”

The mattress is uncomfortable, lumpy and loud, but Louis’ still grateful for it, flopped down on his back with his eyes closed and all his clothes still on. “I took care of it. Crossroads demon, like we thought.”

“Louis—“

“I’m not really in the mood for a lecture, Li, if it’s all the same to you. I took care of it, okay? He canceled the deal.”

“He?”

“The demon.”

“The demon who’s a he.”

“Yes, Liam.” Louis rolls his eyes. “Keep up.”

“So you just...went after it alone. Without any backup.”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not the  _point;_ we’re supposed to have each other’s backs, that’s why you  _have_ a partner—“

“I can take care of myself,” Louis spits, suddenly burning hot all over. “I was fine without you. You’re not my fucking keeper, okay?”

Liam goes quiet. “Alright. If you don’t want me around—“

“Liam,” Louis groans, “that’s not what I meant, I’m sorry. I’m just…stressed. I want you around. I just…I knew I could do this, I did it, end of story. I want to go to sleep, now.”

A long silence stretches between the queen beds, and then a soft sigh. “I’ve never not had a partner. I don’t know how to make you understand that I’m not, like, babying you by wanting to do dangerous shit together. It makes me feel like you don’t trust me.”

 _I don’t,_ Louis thinks, and squeezes his mouth shut hard against the thought. “Okay,” he says, once it’s backed off. “Sorry. Won’t do it again.”

“Alright. What happened, anyway?”

Louis doesn’t open his eyes to see if Liam catches his shrug or slow exhale. “Acted like I wanted to deal, caught him in a Devil’s trap. Exorcised him until he agreed to cancel out the deal.”

“You didn’t just exorcise it?”

“No point to that,” Louis says. “He’d just get sent downstairs and then collect on the deal anyway.”

Liam doesn't say anything for a moment. “You keep saying he.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, trying to keep his tone non-confrontational even though he really wants Liam to drop it and let him sleep. “Not used to crossroads demons being guys, in general.”

“Not saying anything. Just noticing. Usually they’re all an ‘it’.”

“Yeah.”

Liam must—blessedly, for once—be able to read the tone of Louis’ voice, the implicit dismissal. “G’night, Lou. Good job.”

Louis swallows. “Goodnight.” He’d been worried he’d have trouble sleeping; he rarely catches more than four hours at a time, and those are hard-won. He’s expecting to stare at the ceiling for over an hour; surprisingly, the thick quiet only takes a few minutes to surround him after he closes his eyes, and he doesn’t dream.

*

Liam and he have been partners for close to a year, but they’ve known each other much longer. Sometimes Louis marvels at the improbability of it: the detective who’d been perpetually up his and Zayn’s ass for  _years,_ landing Louis in a jail cell more than once (Zayn had—  _has?—_ a way of weaseling out of these things, likely the same skill-set that would then get Louis out of those jail cells, so he never held a grudge, not seriously, not then), ending up his hunting partner in a series of events that makes Louis wonder if there are forces at work besides the all-consuming evil that he’s tangled up in. Not for long, though—Louis’ seen enough to know there’s nothing out there except shit that wants to kill you, or worse.

Still, Liam drumming on the window of the Camaro—despite Louis’ threats to  _fucking skin him_ —was not a thing he could’ve imagined a year ago, before Louis had been in a cell by himself with no Zayn to smuggle him out, and a smug junior detective smirking at him, and had ended up throwing his own body between said smug detective and the murderous ghost Liam had acquired via a haunted amulet, taking broad swings with a rusted bar wrenched from the dilapidated window. Thank god for crumbling infrastructure.

Louis was used to trying to shake Liam off, often picturing him as an enthusiastic, overly determined dog—Zayn had done a cartoon, once, on the back of a napkin, which Louis had kept for quite a while before it got soaked in his own blood during a hunt—but he didn’t quite know what to do with a Liam who wouldn’t leave him alone because he wanted to  _help,_ not throw Louis in maximum security and let him rot.

“I want to help people,” Liam said, wide-eyed and earnest, gaze flickering back and forth between Louis and the pyre they’d built. Standard salt and burn. Easy. Louis barely had to think. The ghost hadn’t even gotten to kill anyone, and here Liam was, pleading for Louis to help him throw his life away to become a hunter. “I thought I was doing it—I mean, I was—but all that time I spent chasing after you two, when you were helping people.”

“Trying to,” Louis said, staring fixedly at the fire even as it made his eyes twitch and burn. “It doesn’t always work out.”

“That’s just how it is, though. Nobody gets it right all the time.”

“I guess,” Louis conceded. A quick mental inventory of his life, good and evil deeds done, turned up the same result it always did: a precarious balance, the rosters neck and neck. He’d been useless these past months, botching more hunts than he could stand to think about, his dependence on Zayn immediately apparent and sickening. He loathed it, and loathed the way that loathing it didn’t make it less true; he’d let himself need someone, and he’d become complacent, as if they were going to stay with him. It was naïve, and stupid, and he wasn’t going to do it ever again.

Staring at the fire had given him time to wrestle with the facts of it again, as if he’d get a different result if he held the big fucking caustic knot of resentment and shame and hate at the right angle, in the right light, he might see how to untangle it. He pictured tossing it in the fire, and the phantom burn as it pulled him along with it into the blaze.

“Tomlinson?” Liam said, snapping him out of the haze and making him suddenly, acutely aware of how badly his whole face, but particularly his eyes, hurt.

“It’s Louis,” he snapped. “If we’re going to do this, it’s Louis, okay?”

“Alright. Louis.”

Louis kicked a twig into the embers at the edge of the fire, pulled his jacket a little tighter around his middle, and decided. “Well, I already know you’re good with a gun, so that’s a start.”

*

To Liam’s credit, he’s very game about tagging along to gay bars when Louis goes—rarely, a big city luxury for the most part—even though he blushes bright red and stutters every time a guy hits on him, some variation of, “No, I’m just here with my partner--wait, no, not like that, I mean my work partner! Not that like, there would be anything wrong with that, if we were partners, I mean, but we're not.” Even turning down drinks on the (totally true) excuse that he’s designated driver sends him spluttering half the time. Louis shouldn’t be as amused by it as he is; it’s different than the game he used to play with Zayn, betting on which guys they could pick up, even though Zayn never followed through, which put Louis at a distinct disadvantage in terms of timing. As did his eyelashes. All he really had to do was bat them at someone. Unfair.

There’s an itch under Louis’ skin tonight, deep and maddening, that’s prevented him from paying much attention to Liam’s welfare. Last he’d seen him, Liam was having an animated conversation with an old-school leather daddy who must’ve been twice his age, Liam gesticulating wildly and smiling. Normally, this is the kind of thing that would occupy Louis for some time, but he can be single-minded, to the point of tunnel vision—it’s part of what makes him a good hunter, what cut him out for his life—and tonight he can only focus on the throbbing need to find someone to  _fuck_ him, rough and verging on violent, making him take so much that he can’t think about anything else. It’s a mood that comes over him every so often and doesn’t leave until he gives in and does what it wants, which is more demanding and exhausting than sex usually is, for him, but also satisfying, scratching an itch that pulses all the way down to his porous, pulpy bone marrow.

He licks his lips—chapped, a little whisky tang—and concentrates on the feeling of the man pressed up against him and the big, hot palms sliding under his shirt. Louis says something about big hands that makes the man laugh, jostling him a little;  _yes,_ he thinks. Liam can get another room for the night. Louis will pay for it, even, his dry mouth watering a little as he sees the night in flashes of sensation and color, feeling what’s being whispered into his ear rather than hearing it, and understanding,  _wanting_ in his gut even though he has no idea what’s been offered. 

Louis must have communicated the plan somehow, though, because he feels a nod against his neck and a sudden shock of cold where before there had been warmth and wet. Absently, he pokes at the spot on his throat, spit-slick and tingling, probably painful if he were sober. It feels great. So does the man letting Louis hang off him as they get to their feet and move toward the exit, his hands all over Louis’ body and his dick poking hot and insistent against Louis' lower back. It’s all fucking great.

What’s not great is how, all of a sudden, the guy pulls away from Louis and starts talking to somebody at the bar while still hanging onto Louis’ wrist, which Louis yanks away, a little slower and weaker than he’d like. It starts to go toward his pocket automatically, muscle memory set off by the bruising grip and twisting release; his body wants to make the next logical move, but he’s too unsteady on his feet and has to stop to catch himself, which gives his brain time to catch up.  _What the fuck._

“What the fuck?” he hears himself shout over the pulsing of music and talk.

The guy—Daniel? David? Something with a D—turns back toward him, raising his eyebrows and fish-mouthing for a moment. He looks dazed, and not as good in this light. His facial hair is very uneven around a very thin mouth. “Hi,” he says, “One second, okay?”

“Could you give us a minute?” drawls the stranger. Louis frowns. It’s a familiar voice, low and strange. He’s too drunk to place it, though, and can barely fucking hear himself think, so he can’t talk himself out of throwing an elbow into the stranger’s back before he does it.

The stranger's head snaps around. A pulse of cold fear whips down Louis’ spine, sobering him at least partway—enough to grab for his knife and get a good grip on it. Not enough, though, to not be stupid and antagonize the fucking crossroads demon who just cockblocked him.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Louis says, aware of the prickle of glances on him and moving so the blade is mostly shadowed under the bar. “Isn’t this a little beneath you?”

“I like the cocktails,” Harry says blithely, and takes a sip of his: something garishly pink and huge. “And David and I were just having a chat.”

 

“Cruising for souls?”

“I’m not working,” Harry replies, eyes flicking down to the knife in Louis’ hand. He doesn’t seem perturbed that Louis’ fucking up his transaction.

Louis scoffs. “Right, of course you’re not buttering Daniel here up to deal.”

“It’s David,” Harry says, “and no, I’m not.” David doesn’t say anything; he looks close to passing out, or throwing up. Louis’ cheeks feel hot with rage. Having people summon you is one thing. Preying on drunk guys is a totally different fucking story.

“Right, cause demons are  _all about_ consent, or whatever. I forgot how  _moral_ your fucking species is, forgive me.”

“Keep your voice down,” Harry hisses, glancing around and looking uncomfortable for the first time tonight. “I don’t deal with people who are off their arses. I’m  _not working.”_

“What are you doing, then?”

Harry sips his drink, his face smoothing out. “Socializing.”

Another glance at David reveals him slumped on the counter, drooling with his mouth hanging wide open. “Good company,” Louis says, jerking his head slightly. “Riveting conversation, I’m sure.”

“Could say the same to you,” Harry mumbles. Louis thinks he sees his cheeks flush a little, but it might just be the light.

“It’s none of your fucking business, is it?”

Harry’s quiet for a long time. “No,” he says, “I suppose it isn’t.”

“Then what the fuck are you here for?”

“You never told me your name.”

“Why the fuck would I tell you my name?”

Harry pouts. “I told you mine. I can’t keep calling you puny hunter when I tell the story.”

“Great story.”

“It’s a real corker,” Harry says. “Tell it at all the work parties.”

“Around the demonic water cooler?”

“Exactly,” Harry deadpans, the shadow of a dimple appearing. Louis should walk away. This is infuriating; Harry’s infuriating, and Louis can’t look away from his mouth, full and pink and stained pinker with whatever’s in his frilly monster of a drink.

“You’re the weirdest demon I’ve ever met,” Louis blurts suddenly.

Harry arches his eyebrows. “Meet a lot, do you?” His rings glint where his (huge) hands are wrapped around the stem of the glass. Louis tries not to stare.

He tears his gaze away and shrugs. “A good number, yeah. Pains in my ass. It’s worse when they try to be funny.”

“God,” Harry groans, “I work with so many absolute bores. It’s a nightmare.”

“Cause you’re so fascinating. Invigorating, in fact. A delight.”

“I’m charming,” Harry says, the hint of a pout reappearing. He licks his lips, and Louis’ eyes track the movement. “Quirky.”

“Very,” Louis says. He’s foggy enough that the teasing comes easily and he finds himself forgetting that Harry’s a demon and therefore the sum of all things Louis hates. He  _does_ remember that Harry cockblocked him. Louis reminds him of that fact, and Harry has the—decency, would he call it?—to duck his head so that a thick curtain of hair obscures his face for a moment before he tosses it back and runs his hand through it. Louis can’t tell if it’s an affectation or a nervous habit, or if those are different, or if it’s Harry or his host. Right. He’s ogling some poor schmuck who’s had the shitty luck to get possessed. His jaw tightens reflexively, molars grinding together and squeaking a little.

It’s been a moment. Harry hasn’t said anything; he’s just staring at Louis, unblinking and owlish.

“What?” Louis snaps, testing the weight of the knife still in his hand; he had worried he’d dropped it while he was, very possibly, trying to hit on a demon.

“Nothing,” Harry says, flatly. “Sorry I ruined your hot date.” David’s gotten up and sat down at a table with some guy with a severe side-shave and a very square jaw. “He’s not all that attractive, though, is he?” Harry says, then, matter of fact. Louis’ head throbs sharply for a moment and he becomes newly aware of the itch, which seems to have doubled in insistence since he got here.

God. This night’s a bust. Louis needs to call Liam and get into bed ASAP instead of making chit-chat at the bar with a demon who’d fucked up his plans to get laid. “Fuck off,” Louis says. “You here for payback? Be straight with me.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth ticks up in what should probably be a sinister way. It’s really not. “I’m afraid I can’t,” he says, loftily. “Be straight with you, that is.” His gaze flicks deliberately from Louis’ eyes to his mouth and back again.

Louis rolls his eyes. “I walked into that one,” he grouses. “But honestly.”

“I told you,” Harry says. “I like the cocktails.” He drags the last word out, lingering over the first syllable. It shouldn’t make Louis’ dick twitch. It really, really shouldn’t, but he’s more or less at the end of his rope and his dick has a mind of its own anyway. Harry doesn’t seem to notice, thankfully.

“Whatever,” Louis says, wincing at the scrape of the stool as he pushes roughly back, keeping his eyes on Harry. He hasn’t gone  _totally_ stupid; he’s expecting a move, and tries to be ready to counter it.

Harry just shrugs. “Suit yourself. See you around…” He trails off, lifting up the end in time with the scrunch of his brow. Ah. Louis hadn’t told him his name. Good.

Maybe he truly has gone stupid, because he says, “Louis,” and then, “Yeah, see ya.”

He pretends to pass out once Liam’s got him in the car—not before reminding him that Hell hath no fury like what Liam can expect if he fucks up his baby, not that Liam ever would, because he’s even more reverent about her than Louis is, he sometimes thinks—and, thank god, there’s no real attempt at conversation, just Liam humming to himself and the buzz of traffic, with the occasional strident honk.

He jerks off in the shower—tired, disappointing, unsatisfying—and lays face-first on the bed, smothering a long groan in the pillow, which finally makes Liam ask how he is, which makes Louis snap at him and shut off the light, which makes Liam give a kind of soft, pitiful sigh and audibly flip over so his back’s toward Louis, which makes Louis flush with guilt, which makes him restless and unable to get comfortable for what feels like hours, which gives him an absolute bitch of a hangover in the morning.

Fucking  _demons._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya! Thanks to everyone who's read/commented on/given kudos to this story so far. I'm really excited that people are into it, and I hope it doesn't disappoint. I estimate updating once a week or so, depending on how much I'm able to write and edit; generally, I'm trying to stay two chapters ahead of posting. Mercury and Mars are both retrograde for a bit, so fingers crossed that doesn't interfere.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and please, if you are at all inclined, tell me your thoughts! 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: violence, injury, alcohol, bad dads. These are gonna be pretty general. If there's anything else you'd like me to warn for, or would like me to warn in more detail, just drop me a line.

There’s a nest of vampires in southern Oregon. It’s a pretty routine job, but it’s Liam’s first encounter with more than one at once, and Louis’ a little edgy. He spends a couple of hours sitting on the hood of the Camaro and sharpening the machetes, until the barest brush of his thumb to the edge slits through the skin, and he has to suck on it for a few minutes to stop the bleeding. They have some dead man’s blood, but not enough for more than two vamps, three at most. Signs point to this being a pretty big pack, although new to the area; probably bled their last location dry, or else got chased off.

Louis carefully slips the machetes back into their slots and locks the trunk. It’s approaching noon, and he’s starting to sweat through his shirt; the heat’s getting him agitated.

There’s nothing really left to do except wait for nightfall and behead some vampires, which he’s never liked. As if their weird superior attitude weren’t enough, killing them has to be _messy._

He buys a six pack at a gas station a little ways from the motel they’re at, walking both there and back and getting increasingly tetchy and overly-hot. By the time he gets back to the room, his bad mood is full-fledged and ready to sink its teeth into the next thing that annoys him.

Liam takes a can when Louis silently offers it, and they sit quietly for a blessed moment, before Liam stops frowning and says, “What time is it?”

Liam wears a watch. A ridiculous, expensive watch that Louis has on more than one occasion considered stealing and pawning and blaming it on motel staff, except Liam’s not stupid and Louis wouldn’t, not really.

Still, he finds himself glaring at it sometimes. It’s ostentatious, even if it does add credibility to Liam’s fed act. That and the _actual Fed_ thing. Louis has to very consciously not think about Liam having been a cop, let alone the cop who’d been on a vendetta against him until last year. Anyway. Liam has a watch, is the point, and it is very reliable and doesn’t break because it’s expensive and money makes things work. Liam has no real reason to be asking what time it is, because he would know far better than Louis, given the watch ticking steadily on his wrist.

Rolling the rim of the can over his bottom lip, Louis considers his response for a moment before just giving in to his foul mood and snapping, “I don’t fucking know, do I? If you’re going to bitch at me about drinking, save it. I’ll be sober by the time we go out.”

Liam reels back slightly. “I know that. It’s just early, is all.”

Louis rolls his eyes, gesturing at the open curtains with his free hand. “Excellent observational skills. They teach you that at Quantico?”

He’d put money on Liam having his kicked puppy face on, but he doesn’t want to look at him, and he stares fixedly out the window into the mostly-empty parking lot. He’s really not in the mood for Concerned Liam; bitterly, he thinks _at least Zayn never got on my case about drinking._

“Okay,” Liam says, in a fake-apology tone that lets Louis know Liam thinks he’s being unreasonable, which makes him even more annoyed. “Excuse me for caring about your health.”

“You’re not my mom,” Louis retorts, aware that the pitch of his voice is climbing steadily, and if it gets much higher he’ll be in shrill territory.

“No, I’m not,” Liam says, slowly and carefully. He does kind of sound like Louis’ mom, is the thing, needling at him to eat his carrots and wear a helmet and stay on the sidewalk, and it gets right under Louis’ skin, like a scalpel, immediate and agonizing. “I’m your...I’m trying to be a good friend.”

“We’re not friends,” Louis says, immediately, even though that’s not true. “We’re hunting partners, okay? If it’s not interfering with the hunt, it’s not your damn business, capiche?”

“Are you okay?” Liam’s more urgent, now, sounding actually worried, and a little wounded. “Also, thanks for that, really made me feel great, which I’m sure was the point. But seriously.”

“I’m fine,” Louis snaps, then takes a deep breath and holds it for five counts, exhaling for ten as he tries to visualize his anger pouring out of his mouth in a cloud of smoke. “I’m being a dick,” he says, after.

“Yeah,” Liam agrees. It stings, even though it shouldn’t. Everything stings; he feels like a raw nerve, flayed open and jolting at every slight touch. It’s a familiar sensation—the summer always feels like this, to a degree—but it hasn’t been this intense in awhile, not since the first two summers with his father. Another deep breath and slow exhale. _Stop being so fucking sensitive._

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, after a few more rounds of very deliberate breathing and visualizing. “It’s fucking hot.”

“I know,” Liam groans. “It’s bullshit.”

“Who gave it the right?”

“Exactly. I should go to the ice machine, but this seems like the kind of place where there would be, like, a frozen leg in it.”

Louis snorts. “You found a lot of frozen legs in motel ice machines?”

“No, but it’s, like, a gut feeling.”

“Ah. Well, you’ve gotta go with it, then. Trust your gut and all that. Didn’t they teach you that?”

“No, actually.”

“Useless.”

“You go with your gut, then?”

“Most of the time. Usually about food, though. I told you not to eat those tacos.”

Liam moans. “Please don’t remind me.”

“Your guts almost came out.”

“Louis.”

“You wouldn’t stop apologizing to the housekeeping lady.”

“ _Louis._ ”

“You almost barfed on that banshee.”

“Louis, I swear to god—”

“Alright, alright. I won’t talk about it anymore.”

“Thank you. So I was reading up on vampires—”

“Twilight?”

“Shut _up._ ”

Louis goes in for the nipple twist and almost makes it; damn Liam’s reflexes and actual, professional training. He gets it the second time, after Liam’s surrendered; he fights dirty, always has and always will.

*

Okay, so Louis may have slightly underestimated this particular nest; it’s a dump, okay, and all the vamps look like teenagers, which threw him off a little. He wasn’t really expecting this thin-as-a-rail pimply teenager who looks like he should be working at a drive-thru to put him in a headlock within seconds, although he should’ve been, and he curses himself.

He tries the ropes binding his wrists again: no luck. The vamp who tied him—Jerry, he thinks—clearly wasn’t an amateur, and the hours upon hours a younger Louis spent learning to to tie and untie every knot he could are proving pretty fucking useless. Still, he keeps at it. He’s not in the mood to be bled dry, especially if they draw it out like most vampires. Sadistic fucks. Louis _really_ hates them.

One of the female vampires had snatched up the machetes from the floor and set them on a small, rickety-looking table about twenty feet from Louis and thirty from Liam, who’s apparently having similar luck with his bindings, from what Louis can see in the dim, flickering light.

Louis sucks in the drool that’s starting to drip from the corner of his mouth and chews on the gag, trying to think. He’s still got the dead man’s blood tucked into his boot, and they’ll probably have to untie him at some point to move him into a better feeding position. It’s a long shot, but he might be able to move quick enough to immobilize one and then run like hell for a machete. It’s not a good plan, but he’s short on options. It’ll have to do.

His arms are starting to go from aching to tingly; that’s not good for his agility, and he squirms again, trying to restore a little more blood flow. _Fuck._ This is amateur shit, stupid mistakes he shouldn’t be making after more than a decade of hunting.

His ass and arms are both totally numb by the time two of the vamps—fuck, that hurts his odds—come back into the garage: Jerry, and another one Louis hadn’t caught the name of. She’s tiny: blonde and sweet-looking. If Louis weren’t looking for the malicious twist to her expression, he might miss it.

“Well, well,” Jerry drawls. Okay, so that’s how it’s going to be. These ones are talkers. If Louis can get his gag off, he might be able to stall them for a while. “Hit the jackpot, didn’t we, Amelia?”

The second vampire smiles brightly. Louis can’t see fangs, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. “They’re cute,” she says. Her voice is high and cool. “We did good. Might keep these two around for a while.”

“Fuck you,” Louis tries to say around his gag. It comes out garbled, although the tone is probably clear enough.

Both vamps laugh.

“Feisty,” Amelia says, sauntering over towards Louis. She hooks a finger under his chin and he jerks his head away, which amuses her more. Fucking _vampires._ Her sudden grip on his jaw is supernaturally strong; she won’t break his neck, not if she wants to feed, but she could, and it’s a good thing Louis knows it’s just an intimidation tactic, or else he might be shitting his pants.

He can’t move his head, so he settles for glaring at her.

“For such a little thing,” she adds. It’s bizarre, coming from a creature at least five inches shorter than Louis and looking no older than eighteen. She leans in closer, cold breath near Louis’ ear. “We’re going to have some fun with you, sugar.”

 _God,_ vampires are insufferable. “Fuck you,” Louis repeats, louder this time.

She grins. “Can I take his gag out, Jer?”

“Go ahead,” Jerry drawls.

Louis spits on the ground when the filthy fabric’s out of his mouth, just barely missing Amelia’s shoe. “Fuck you.” Third time’s the charm.

“Aw, honey, don’t be that way,” she simpers, and then spits straight into Louis’ eye. “That’s no way to treat a lady.”

He blinks furiously, rolling his eyes once he’s able. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I meet one. Great way to treat a leech, though.” It’s two or three more weeks of this, if they can’t get out, and that’s if they’re lucky; packs have been known to keep prey around for months.

It doesn’t surprise him when she slaps him across the cheek, but it does make his eyes water, which she definitely notices and which he resents hugely. “Smart fucking mouth on you,” she says, and pinches his bottom lip between two fingers. “You know I can cut your tongue out without killing you, right?”

Against his will, his heart starts to pound, and he knows both creatures can hear it; he sees Amelia smirk and her nostrils flare.

“Stop smelling me,” he snaps. “It’s rude.”

A jagged flash of pain near the base of his throat startles him enough that he lets out a sharp noise, high and too close to a whimper for his liking. An icy tongue laves over the wound, and when Amelia pulls back and grins at him, her fangs are out and covered in a thin film of his blood. She makes a show of licking her lips. It’s nauseating, and he grimaces, chewing on his cheek to distract him from the bright burn in his neck.

“Tastes good,” she says lightly, flicking her gaze back toward Jerry, who’s looming over Liam in a way Louis really doesn’t appreciate. “Here, come try.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Jerry prowls across the floor, a predatory gait replacing the awkward shuffle he’d exhibited earlier before disarming and tackling Louis in a few moves. _Fuck._ It strikes him again how stupid he’d been, with Jerry a few paces away. Maybe he can try and knee him in the groin or something, catch him by surprise—

The way the vamp freezes, stock still and wide-eyed, and then, as if by an invisible hand, is lifted off the ground and hurled into the opposite wall, must be a hallucination. Louis hasn’t been properly bitten before; are there hallucinogenic properties to vampire saliva? He racks his brains, the pages of Troy’s journal he has mostly-memorized, and watches as Amelia springs to her feet, baring her fangs and growling at him before being tossed in much the same fashion, hissing when she tries to get back up and finds herself unable to move away from the wall where she’s pinned.

Hallucination or not, Louis seizes the opportunity, using the wall behind him to push himself to his feet; he can see Liam doing the same across the room. Louis’ legs are unsteady, but he manages to get to the table and angle one of the machetes so that he can saw the rope off his wrists, fast and rough and slicing the back of his right hand on the glinting edge of one. He ignores the pain—barely feels it, really—and makes quick work of kneeling beside Liam and cutting off his bindings, just a bit more carefully, ripping the gag out of Liam’s mouth before handing him the other machete.

“What the fuck is going on?” Liam hisses, although he’s right alongside Louis, gripping his weapon tightly and flicking his gaze between the door and the still-immobile vamps on the ground, who, from the looks of it, have lost their voices as well.

“Fucked if I know,” Louis mutters. “Time to lop some bloodsucking heads off, though.”

They’re both drenched nearly head to toe in thick, tacky blood thirty minutes later, but they’re the only living things left in the nest, and the grotty shower works well enough, although there’s no hot water.

“Seriously,” Liam says, shivering, and turns the Chevy’s heat on full blast, which is pretty weak. Louis almost snaps at him for wasting gas, but his teeth are chattering, too. “What the fuck just happened?”

Louis bites his lip, fighting the urge to take one hand off the steering wheel and clamp it to his smarting neck, which is still bleeding sluggishly. “I have no goddamn idea,” he admits. “Not that we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, ‘cause it’s fucking stupid not to, but I’m pretty happy not to be a vampire juicebox. Let’s get back to the motel and regroup. Hex bags should keep out anything that might be following us.” _Hopefully._

“Are you okay?” Liam says. “You’re not, like...she bit you, should I be worried?”

“Vampires don’t turn you by biting.” He takes a left turn a little too sharply. “Thank fuck. I thought I told you. It’s drinking _their_ blood that fucks you up.”

Liam shakes his head. “Right. Yeah. You did. I know that, shit, sorry..”

“You’re fine,” Louis says. “I’m sorry. I almost got us both killed.”

“Yeah,” Liam murmurs as they pull into the parking spot in front of 6B. “But you didn’t. That’s what counts, right?”

“I guess.” Louis puts the car in park, maybe with a little more force than is necessary. “How are you feeling? Physically, I mean.”

“Fine. Might’ve bruised a rib, and my shoulders fucking hurt, but nothing serious. That’s gonna need stitches, though.” He gestures at the gash on Louis’ hand, which rather large and seriously throbbing, now that he really looks at it.

“Alright,” Louis sighs. “You get the dental floss and whisky, I’ll meet you in there. No dislocated joints, at least.”

Liam visibly winces, clearly remembering the time Louis had had to wrench his shoulder back into its socket. “Thank god for small favors,” he says. “We need more gauze.”

Louis nods. “Tomorrow. Gimme a sec, I’m just gonna get everything back in the trunk.”

“You really should—”

“C’mon, leave it. I’m not gonna bleed out.”

Liam huffs and pushes the door open, leaving Louis to lean against the trunk and take a few deep breaths while scanning their surroundings. Nothing really out of the ordinary: bugs around a flickering street lamp, muggy heat, mostly clear sky. He watches the clouds for a minute, until he really does start to feel the way his skin’s split open, and registers a sharp pain in his elbow he hadn’t noticed before. He keeps seeing movement out of the corners of his eyes, but when he turns his head there’s nothing there, just empty sidewalk and asphalt. He goes inside.

*

Louis was thirteen when he killed his first vampire. It was one of his first real hunts, where Troy handed him his weapon and said, “You know what to do.” He hadn’t had a lot of practice with blades; he was a good shot, but the heavy, macabre tool was unwieldy, and he’d had to grip it with two hands, which shortened the range of his swing and made him miss the vamp’s neck by a solid foot, and bury the blade in drywall, instead. He’d frantically tugged it out, but his mistake had given the vampire time to circle around and kick his legs out from under him. Louis had fallen face-first onto the floor, instinctively bringing his hands up to break his fall, and shattered his right wrist.

He screamed, dropping his weapon to cradle his hand against his chest, unable to focus on anything but the white-hot pain of it: the feeling of his splintered bones grinding together; the sickening _snap_ they’d made on impact.

A wet, fleshy sound, and then the vamp’s head was rolling on the floor next to him, sputtering blood in thin, forceful streams that spat at Louis’ face; he shut his eyes and made a noise of disgust.

“Close your mouth,” Troy snapped, wiping his blade on the dead vampire’s shirt, “or else you’ll turn into one of them.” Louis obeyed and tried not to look at the head that had come to a stop a few feet away, its open, snarling mouth and wide eyes facing him.

“There’s one more,” his father continued. “I stuck her with dead man’s blood. She’s on the floor over there.” He pointed. “You’re gonna kill her.”

“I can’t,” Louis said, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible as zinging pain radiated up his arm, clutched to his chest while he pulled himself up into a sitting position. “I think I broke my wrist.”

Troy looked at him for a moment. “Use your other arm,” he said flatly, and used his foot to nudge Louis’ discarded machete towards him. “Hunt doesn’t end because you got hurt. Broken wrist won’t kill you, but it will if you let it stop you long enough for something else to.”

Unsteadily, Louis got to his feet, wincing and biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood and trying to focus on that instead of the raw, throbbing ache that felt like it had spread from his wrist, up his arm, to his shoulder, across his chest, and was still gaining ground. He almost fell picking up the blade, but steadied himself and made his way carefully across the room to the unconscious vampire sprawled on the floor.

Her face was turned up; she was pretty, verging on middle-aged, and without her fangs bared, Louis wouldn’t have been able to tell what she was.

“Go on,” his father said.

Louis swallowed and nudged his foot under her back so he could turn her onto her side, facing away from him.

The first swing missed and cut into her shoulder, nearly severing her arm; he bit his cheek harder, and aimed again. He was a reedy kid, despite the year-plus of training, and he just didn’t have the upper body strength to effectively wield the medieval-looking weapon, much less with his non-dominant arm and the other immobilized. It took upwards of ten swings for the blade to finally, finally hit the concrete floor, and he vomited a little into his mouth as he hacked.

“Alright,” Troy said, when he was finished. “Clean it off, we’re going back to the car.”

“Yes, sir.”

The ride back to the motel was silent, his father’s disappointment palpable and stony.

“Are we going to the hospital?” he asked meekly, when the car was parked in front of their motel room and his father made to get out.

“No,” Troy said, although not angrily. “I can set that in the room. Perks of hunting with a former field surgeon.” The corner of his mouth ticked up, then, and his tone softened a little. “You’ll do better next time.”

Louis bit almost all the way through his bottom lip trying to keep quiet and still as his wrist was moved into place, splinted, and bandaged. His father’s hands were efficient, but not rough—bizarrely, Louis was kind of disappointed when it was over and his arm was released, but he obediently took the two pills he was given, knocking another swig of gin when prompted and trying not to wince at the burn in his throat.

They went over the hunt the next day: what had gone wrong, what had gone right (not a lot on Louis’ part; facts were facts) and what would be different the next time. Troy took him to a diner and bought him a milkshake and a cheeseburger for lunch so he could take more painkillers. They went to the Salvation Army afterwards, because Louis’ jeans were getting too short again, and the Army Surplus, before packing everything into the car and hitting the road. Troy let Louis control the radio the whole way to Great Falls, where there was, Troy informed him, what he suspected to be a ghoul infestation.

*

There’s a dive bar in Portland called the Truckstop. Nick owns it; he’d inherited it from his father, and had picked out the pretentious new name. Louis is pretty sure Nick has never been to a real, actual truck stop, the kind that made up a substantial portion of Louis’ adolescence and which he avoided as an adult. Louis would doubt that he was even a hunter, except that he’s seen him in action. Nick is a scary-good shot, and during a hunt, his blithe attitude and acerbic sense of humor give way to a surprising ruthlessness. He’d joined up with Louis and Zayn on a hunt or two—a skinwalker; a ghost terrorizing a local hospital—but for the most part, he sticks to his own turf, happy tending bar and playing stupid hipster music and being funnier than Louis would admit to finding him.

He likes Nick, is the thing, and Nick likes him, but neither of them say it, preferring their comfortable, caustic bickering, which, Louis admits, might seem genuinely hostile to an outsider.

Liam, for example, seems alarmed as their current argument gets louder and louder, which Louis finds both amusing and energizing. Nick’s wrong about Nirvana, which Louis’ not going to let slide.

“I’m just saying,” Nick says, wiping down a glass, “it’s okay to admit you’re wrong sometimes. We can all just get along.”

“And I’m just saying,” Louis retorts, “it’s okay to pull your head out of your ass, sometimes. Weather’s great out here.”

Nick grins. His mouth is huge. Louis doesn’t know how he feels about it (and they don’t talk about that one time, which was actually three, as Nick had helpfully pointed out, and Louis had told him to shut the fuck up). “Quite like it in here, actually,” he says, tone lofty. Nick’s also English, which automatically makes him at least 20% more pompous just from the accent alone. “Don’t think I’ll be leaving anytime soon. Who’s this fit young man, then?” He tips the glass toward Liam.

“This is Liam,” Louis says. “You remember how that one Fed was chasing me and Z across the country for fucking ever?” He carefully keeps his tone neutral.

“ _Really?_ ” Nick looks delighted. “Good one, Tommo. Nice to meet you, Liam.”

“You too,” Liam says, sounding, as usual, genuinely earnest. He reaches across the bar to shake Nick’s hand and smiles. “Louis’ told me about you.”

Louis squawks and slaps Liam on the arm, although he avoids the bruise he knows is covering most of his tricep. “Shut up, Payne.”

Nick’s grin gets impossibly wider. “Aw, babe,” he simpers, and makes kissy noises at Louis, which Louis considers throwing his drink at him for. “You could’ve just called and said you missed me.”

“Missed you like a hole in the head,” Louis grumbles. “I told him that a lot of hunters came through your damn bar, not that I wanted to...I don’t know, suck your toes, whatever freak shit you’re into.”

Nick waggles his eyebrows. “I’d be up for it.”

Louis considers, again, throwing his drink. “Shut the fuck up.”

Nick sighs. “You wound me. What happened to your face, by the way?”

Louis grimaces; he’d developed a hell of a black eye in the day following their botched vampire hunt, nearly half his face swollen and mottled like a bruised peach. “Vamp nest,” he says shortly, and takes a sip of Nick’s expensive, stupid craft beer.

“Ah,” Nick says, nodding. “So that explains your neck, too. I was worried you were running around on me.”

Liam nudges him lightly in the side and leans in, lowering his voice. “Are you two—”

“No,” Louis says, firmly. “Nick’s just...like that.”

“I am,” Nick agrees. “That’s shit, though, about the vampires. Nasty buggers.”

“Right!” Liam agrees, perking up. “It was my first real vampire hunt—I mean, I’d met one before, Lou and I killed this lone one in West Texas last year, but a nest was a whole different thing, y’know?”

“Lou?” Nick mouths. Louis flips him off.

“It was weird, actually,” Liam continues. “Like, they had us tied up in their garage, and these two were in with us, and the girl bit Louis and stuff, and then all of a sudden it was like...some massive thing we couldn’t see just picked them up and threw them across the room, and they couldn’t move, which let us escape and take them out.”

“Huh.” Nick’s brow is furrowed, and he’s leaning forward against the bar. “You said you didn’t see anything?”

“Nope.”

Nick looks back at Louis. “Any idea what it could’ve been, Tommo?”

Louis shrugs. “Ghost, maybe. Don’t know why it would’ve, but that’s all I can think of.” He has another, stranger, theory, but he’s keeping that one to himself, and past doubling the hex bags and chalking a few more runes on the inside of the car and their motel rooms, Louis doesn’t have much of a desire to keep thinking about it. It is weird, though, he has to admit, if only to himself.

“Friendly ghost?” Nick jokes. “Casper?”

“Maybe.”

“Huh. Well, s’pose you’d best look on the bright side, no? You’ve still got your pretty face.”

Louis groans. “Shut _up,_ oh my god. Now I remember why I avoid you.”

“Because I’m charming and irresistible.” Louis’ very briefly reminded of a conversation he only half-remembers, the recollection too loud and blurry to really make out much of the content, and he sort of doubts (because it’s ridiculous) that he’d actually run into the same crossroads demon he’d trapped a week before, and had run into him— _it—_ at a bar on Folsom, and they had made conversation and neither of them had tried to kill the other one. It’s improbable, and Louis is at least 50% sure he dreamed it, or else the dude he was planning on going home with slipped him something that made him hallucinate, which makes him retroactively glad he didn’t go home with him after all.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Louis snorts, after he realizes he’s spaced out for a moment, tracing a finger around the rim of his glass. “You’re not all that and a bag of chips, you know.”

“I’m very certain I am, and the term is _crisps._ ”

“You’ve lived here for what, ten years?”

“Fourteen, actually,” Nick says blithely, and refills Louis’ pint glass. “But I know my roots, unlike some people.”

Louis winces involuntarily, and then forces himself to roll his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Nick seems to consider him for a moment before saying, too casual to actually be casual, “What’s Zayn been up to, then?”

Louis’ sure his momentary freeze is noticeable, but as much as Nick talks shit, he won’t—Louis hopes—actually mention it. “Wouldn’t know,” he says, forced calm and cool. “I would think you might, actually.”

Nick shrugs. “I hear things. Not all of them are true.”

“Things?”

Louis doesn’t like the way Nick’s looking at him, serious and a little careful. “Things, you know, through the grapevine and that. Haven’t seen him, though.”

“What have you heard?”

“Not a lot. A few people say they’ve run into him. One said he was with someone, but I don’t know how much I buy that. He had a weird name, too, something like...I dunno, Nastyguy or something. I think they were having me on, or someone else was having them on.”

Louis chews on his lip, pulling off the scab that had formed overnight. “Cool,” he says, and leaves it there. “Heard anything else interesting?”

“Nothing new, really.” Nick shrugs and goes back to cleaning glasses. The bar’s mostly deserted, now that Louis thinks about it, which is probably normal for a Monday morning but which unsettles him a little nonetheless. “Demon activity all up and down the coast, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Er, you remember the Everharts, that mother and daughter?”

Louis does, so he nods. He hasn’t seen them in years, but Rachel and his father had known each other, and her daughter, Jackie, was around his age, maybe a couple of years older. Their parents had hunted together once, leaving the two of them at the Truckstop (then called Grimshaw’s) for a couple of days to trek through the forest looking for some kind of cryptid; Louis can’t remember what it was. He’d had fun. Nick’s dad had had him doing dishes, and once or twice, running food, and he’d liked the simplicity of it.

Nick’s face is cloudy, so Louis knows it’s bad news. “Yeah, they were killed, about a month ago. Could’ve been just about anything.”

Louis swallows, and pushes down the memory of a conversation with Jackie that’s threatening to bubble up. “That’s awful,” he says, flatly, and hears Liam make a sympathetic noise.

“Yeah,” Nick sighs; he has a way of going from a kind of boisterous eternal boyhood to world-weariness in a matter of seconds, and then springing back again, which can be jarring. “Good people.”

“Mhm.” Louis drains the rest of his beer. “Demons, you think?”

“Could be.” Nick shrugs. “Like I said, no way of knowing, really.”

Liam excuses himself to the bathroom, and Louis takes the opportunity to quietly ask, “Have you heard anything about…”

“No,” Nick cuts him off, gently, and Louis’ grateful for not having to finish the sentence. “Nothing new. I’ve been keeping my ear out. I promise you’ll know if I hear anything.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

“Don’t mention it.” Nick waves a hand. “Go put something on the jukebox, then.”

Louis pouts. “You’re not going to give me quarters?”

“God,” Nick groans. “Some things never change. Here, you scamp.” He fishes three out of his pocket and flips Louis off; Louis returns it, and darts away, cackling, and puts on five songs from _In Utero,_ which is what had started the argument in the first place.

*

“Don’t cause any trouble, okay?” Troy said seriously, bending down to look Louis in the eye. “Stay safe, do what Mr. Grimshaw asks you to, and I’ll be back in a couple of days. Understood?”

“Yes sir.” Louis nodded and swallowed, trying not to fidget. Discipline, as his father kept reminding him, was something any decent hunter needed to develop. He couldn’t help it, though, moving around and stumbling over his words trying to get them out too quickly—there wasn’t enough room in his body for the jolting energy he felt constantly. Sleep deprivation and hunger, both of which were common on the road, only made it worse, made him more spastic and annoying and drove his dad crazy.

“I have a lead on the demon that killed your mother,” Troy said flatly. He didn’t have to say, _the demon that killed your mother while wearing your body;_ Louis knew, and his dad didn’t bring it up, not unless he was really angry, usually when Louis had fucked something up hugely. He never talked about Jay, not since the first and only time he’d explained what had happened, when Louis had first been sent to him. He shrugged off Louis’ questions about their relationship, and why, exactly, the demon had come after her and Mark, and had done so wearing his body. Troy never answered, but Louis kept pushing, as hard as he could without getting popped in the mouth. It was a tricky balance, and it frustrated him frequently.

The second Louis would feel his resentment towards the father who hadn't even tried to contact him until Louis had nowhere else to go, though, he would remember that if he had known what was going to happen—if he had been able—he would’ve taken himself as far away from his family as possible. As it was, he kept away from his sisters; they’d all been adopted out quickly, being cute and young enough to have a relatively easy time forgetting their real parents. Louis could visit them, technically, if he was accompanied by his guardian, which, well. He wasn’t going to ask, and Troy wasn’t going to suggest it. The girls were living with a nice, well-off family outside Princeton, and they were safe, and they were better off with as few reminders as possible of their past life, of him and what he had done.

“Louis, are you listening?” Troy snapped, bringing Louis back to the present.

“Yes sir,” he responded, trying to keep his voice steady. “What’s the lead?”

Troy studied him carefully for a moment. “A murder,” he said, finally. “Triple homicide.. Kid killed her parents and brother. Burned them alive. Claims she couldn’t stop herself.”

Louis’ head swam, and the sensation of phantom smoke made his eyes burn. “Oh,” he said.

His dad’s brow furrowed further, and Louis didn’t mean to flinch when Troy put a hand on his shoulder, but he did, still blinking rapidly and fighting the urge to cough.

“Hey,” Troy said, almost gently. “It wasn’t your fault, alright? We’re gonna find the bastard and figure out a way to kill it. Remember?”

Louis nodded. He did; they had promised each other.

“Okay.” His dad ruffled his hair, and Louis managed not to flinch again. “Keep your head down, don’t cause trouble. There’s always hunters here, so you don’t have to worry about anything supernatural, but you can’t always trust other hunters, either. I’ll call in a few days.”

With that, he clapped Louis’ shoulder once more, squeezed it, and left.

He didn’t call, but returned a week later; Louis could immediately tell he was in a terrible mood, quiet and brusque with his shoulders set in a harsh, angry line. Before he could stop himself, Louis asked if he had gotten anywhere towards finding the demon, and then bitten his tongue as Troy shouted, “What the fuck do you _think,_ Louis? Use your fucking brain. I’m going to the bar, go to bed.”

So Louis curled up on the air mattress in the Grimshaws’ living room, directly above the bar, and stared at the hideous wallpaper, the passing lights from cars and flicker of the moon giving the impression, sometimes, that flames were licking up them, all around him, closer and closer.

*

It’s only about four hours from the Truckstop to Niall’s house in the foothills of the Cascades, but a little bit longer to take a route that doesn’t involve Snoqualmie pass or, really, much mountain driving at all. Little mountains are okay, but the enormity of the Western ranges makes Louis nervous, so he just tells Liam he wants to avoid traffic—which is true—and they take the longer way, pulling into Niall’s just as the sun’s beginning to slink behind the mountains.

There isn’t anything approximating a driveway, so he just parks in the grass next to Niall’s blue pickup, which is next to his silver Prius, which Louis can’t not make fun of him for. Niall’s always bitching about how the Camaro’s a gas-guzzler; he’s not wrong, but at least it’s not a yuppie soccer mom car. It would be nice if it got better gas mileage, but it is what it is.

“LOUIS!” Niall shouts from the front door. As they approach, Louis can see that he’s leaning heavily on his cane, one arm quivering, but he still tackles Louis in a bear-hug the second he steps onto the porch, cane clattering to the floor. “Good to see you,” Niall says, right in his ear; they’re pressed as close to each other as they can be, rocking back and forth a little. It constricts Louis’ breathing, but he lets himself melt into it.

They pull apart when Niall starts to wobble, and before either of them can get to it, Liam’s picked up the cane and handed it to Niall, who grins and says, “Hiya, Agent Payne.”

Liam flushes and mumbles something about not being an agent anymore, and Louis ruffles Niall’s fluffy hair. “Getting long,” he remarks.

“Yeah,” Niall sighs. “Got to do the roots soon. Or I might just let it go brown, I haven’t decided.”

“Or, like, orange and red. You could be Heat Miser.”

Niall cuffs him around the ear, and he flinches a little but giggles. “Enough out of you,” Niall grouses, and then pulls Louis in by the shoulders for another hug. “Don’t be such a stranger, okay?” he says, voice low. “It wouldn’t hurt you to ring once in awhile.”

“I will,” Louis promises. “Had shitty service.” It’s a lie, and an obvious one, but Niall doesn’t call him on it, beckoning him and Liam inside, where it smells overwhelmingly like chili. Niall makes great chili; Louis’ stomach rumbles almost violently when he smells it, and he becomes suddenly aware of just how fucking hungry he is. He’d tuned it out during the drive.

He and Liam get the table set while Niall monitors the chili and the cornbread, which requires opening the oven on occasion and listening to Liam fuss about “letting all the hot air out.” Louis notices the pained grimace that flits across Niall’s face whenever he takes a step, and the stiffness in his right shoulder from using the cane, but he doesn’t say anything about either.

It had taken the complete shattering of both his kneecaps for Niall to give up hunting full-time. Louis wants to find a way to mention maybe getting some orthopedic crutches in a way that won't start a fight. He’s not even going to touch the wheelchair subject; Niall’s friendly, and easygoing, and has a knack for lifting even the worst of spirits, but he’s also stubborn as hell, particularly when it comes to taking care of himself. Louis can relate.

They have a sort of accord: Niall rags on him for his drinking; Louis bitches at him for not using his damn cane when he needs it half the time, but it’s understood that neither of them are going to change their behavior, no matter how much each might want the other to. It’s a little fucked up, but it’s less fucked up than other things, and Louis doesn’t feel the particular need to do anything about it.

They eat dinner, quickly and noisily, and Liam insists on doing the dishes, so Louis and Niall let him and move to the living room, with its huge, plaid couch, which Louis collapses on immediately.

“I love this couch,” Louis groans, eyes closed. “I never want to be anywhere except this couch.”

“It’s a good one,” Niall agrees from somewhere to his left. “What d’ya want to drink?”

“Whisky,” Louis says automatically. “Whatever’s good.”

He hears the soft, musical clinks of glass, familiar and soothing. “Y’know, I was thinking for a while about starting a distillery. There’s loads of them around here, and people go mad for like, local, organic shite.” Niall had a beer with dinner; his accent thickens progressively as he drinks, to the point where Louis sometimes can’t make sense of anything he’s saying. Louis is usually really drunk, then, too, so it doesn’t really matter.

The soft sound of a glass being set down on the side table makes him open his eyes, rolling over to pick it up.

Niall’s in the recliner next to him, with an identical drink, which he raises. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Louis echoes. “Wait, hang on, to what?”

“Your good health,” Niall suggests. “I dunno.”

“ _Your_ good health,” Louis counters, and they both raise their glasses and sip. It took Louis a while to acclimate to hard liquor on its own; the smell is a little bit like a ghost of pain, countless stitches and bones set, joints popped back into place. It reminds him of his dad, too, which feels so annoyingly cliche that he refuses to acknowledge it. At most, he’ll make a _daddy issues_ joke, laugh it off, and then change the subject. Zayn would purse his lips and go quiet, but wouldn’t push, and Liam, thankfully, at least seems to realize that _that’s_ not a line he should cross.

Niall was his first hunting partner who wasn’t his dad, though, and Louis had a harder time keeping himself together back then. Niall was there for the year after Troy died, which Louis doesn’t remember all that much of, but he knows he was a panicked, raging mess, reckless and self-destructive, taking on hunts that were too much for him to tackle alone with a kind of cavalier attitude that he remembers Niall— _Niall—_ yelling at him for, more than once.

 _You’re going to get yourself killed,_ he had spat, and twisted Louis’ arm so his shoulder slid back into place. _You’re going to get the both of us killed._ They don't talk about that year, anymore.

They really, really don’t talk about the fact that, near the end of that year, Louis had tried to capture, interrogate, and exorcise three demons by himself. He had been running on no sleep, pumped full of caffeine, and a little drunk to top it off. Niall had figured out where he’d gone and come after him, and the head honcho demon—who, to top the whole shit-fest off, had told him nothing about the demon who’d killed his parents—had taken advantage of Louis’ surprise and put him on the floor with a boot in his back and his face smashed against the concrete, with just enough of a view to see the other two demons restrain a cursing and struggling Niall, who was trying to splash them with holy water.

The demon pinning Louis had said something to his lackeys, one of whom picked up a baseball bat, and, while his companion sat on Niall’s chest and laughed, crashed the business end of the bat repeatedly into Niall’s knees. It had taken Louis a minute to realize the _other_ screaming voice was him.

He’d blacked out—so had Niall, by then—and when they both woke up on the floor a few hours later, the demons were gone, and no trace of them besides the smell of sulfur. Louis still doesn’t understand why they hadn’t just killed the two of them.

“Lou!” Niall pokes him, and he jolts back to the present: his fifth whisky and Niall’s awesome couch. “You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?”

“I’m afraid not,” Louis says, slurring a little. “Always had trouble paying attention.” The last word turns into a- _ten-_ shnnnnn, but Niall probably understands.

“Sucks, mate.” Oh. Louis hadn’t realized he’d said that. His mouth feels numb. He must tell Niall, because he sighs and says, “Right, off t’bed wit’ ye.”

If Louis were happy-drunk, he might giggle and purposely try to play up the little hint of Jersey in his voice, ask for a glass of _worter_ and say a bunch of ridiculous shit from the _Sopranos_ that would make Niall cackle and double over. He’s not happy-drunk, though, and to his dismay, his eyes are hot like he might be crying. Shit, his cheeks are wet.

He stands up, ignoring Niall trying to help steady him—Niall really isn’t any better—and begins to cross the room, but everything’s swimming and he kind of just wants to curl up into a ball and sob, which he hates _,_ and hating it makes him want to do it more, and he trips over a book and falls, not that hard, but hard enough that he’ll probably feel it in the morning.

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks, _I’m staying on the floor,_ but Niall somehow, eventually, coaxes him to his feet again and back to the couch, the wonderful couch, and then goes somewhere Louis can’t see him, and Louis sighs, and tries to hug the couch. His nose is running. He loves the couch; he shouldn’t get snot on it, so he flips onto his back and is asleep barely a minute after shutting his heavy, aching eyelids.

His dreams are just blurred sensations, colors, hints of sounds he can’t place but knows he knows because of how one fills him with giddy warmth and another freezes him from the inside out and another feels like he’s on fire, too agonized to stop drop and roll or find water or scream for help, just flitting around in circles within himself, trying to get away from the burning, to find a safe, cool corner, but there’s nothing; or, if there were, the fire burns it away before he reaches it.

Niall doesn’t have a hangover in the morning, which is bullshit. When Louis points this out, Niall just shrugs and says, “I’m Irish,” and Louis flips him off. Niall makes a “proper fry-up,” artery-clogging and delicious, and Louis feels better enough by midday to head outside and get under the Chevy’s hood; she’s just about due for an oil change, and the routine of checking that everything’s running as it should be is soothing. The sun is setting before he realizes it, bouncing in warm oranges off the car’s newly clean, glossy red.

*

“I think I might have found something for you,” Niall says. His tone isn’t heavy, exactly, just not as light as usual, and Louis feels his neck prickle slightly. “This one flat in a building of three burned to cinders, but it didn’t spread anywhere else in the building. Middle floor, too.”

Louis swallows. “Casualties?” he asks.

“Family of four.” Niall grimaces.

“Survivors?”

“Fire department got three out at the scene. No sign of the older daughter.”

Louis doesn’t look at Niall’s face and the expression of sympathy that’s sure to be there. “Lemme guess: fire had no identifiable cause.”

“No.”

“Strong smell of sulfur at the scene?”

“That’s what I heard from Cal, yeah.”

Louis looks up, sharply. “Cal went?”

“He was in the area.”

“What for?”

“Demon signs.”

“Ah.” Louis says. “D’you think it’s worth checking it out?”

Niall shrugs. “Cal’s thorough; I trust him. I think you’re better off trying to track down the girl, to be honest.”

“How old?”

“Thirteen.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Louis says under his breath, and squeezes his eyes shut, hard, for a few seconds. “Yeah, okay.”

“Here’s a photo.” Niall turns his laptop around so Louis can see the amber alert he’s pulled up.

He doesn’t recognize the girl; there’s no reason he would, but it frustrates him, as always, not to be able to find a pattern beyond the demon usually possessing the eldest child. No connections between the families. Random geography and timing—nothing for a year, and then three in as many months. It’s chaotic, and it makes him feel helpless.

“Stasha Webb,” he reads, focusing back on the girl in the picture. “Five foot two, brown eyes, black hair. No apparent abductor.” _Well, that’s helpful._ “Any reports?”

“Not yet. I’m keeping an eye out.”

“It’s been three days. She could be halfway across the country.” Louis doesn’t mean to snap, but he can’t stop staring at the wide, gap-toothed grin on Stasha’s face, the cloudy blue of the backdrop behind her. It looks like a school picture.

Niall just sighs, and says, quietly, “I know. It’s fuckin’ awful.”

“Do we have _anything_ to go on?”

“Not really. I’m sorry.”

Louis breathes out hard through his nostrils, feeling a heavy dread settling into his ribcage. He wants a drink, or to hit something. Maybe both. “So we’re just gonna sit here with our thumbs up our asses until she shows up somewhere?”

Niall shrugs. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to stay put for a minute,” he says casually, eyeing Louis sideways. “Barbara’s got something rattling on her undercarriage and I can’t get down there to see what it is. Make yourself useful, eh?”

“Okay,” Louis says, because fixing cars he can _do,_ which is probably why Niall’s suggesting it, but Niall has a knack for getting Louis to do things that will be good for him without making Louis feel like he’s being babied or condescended to. “I’ll go look at her after lunch.”

“Steady on,” Niall says. “In the meantime, you can help me put these books back where they belong. Go on and get the ladder, would you?”

Louis huffs. “You only want me for manual labor,” he says, walking towards the hallway closet to fetch the ladder, which is really more of a step stool. “This is exploitation. I’m calling the union.”

“Go on ahead,” Niall calls back, cackling. “Oi, bring us the broom, too. There’s all sorts of cobwebs up there. You know how to spot a brown recluse, aye?”

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thanks for waiting; it's been a little bit of a hectic week, the details of which I'm sure aren't interesting, but writing's been kind of on the back burner. 
> 
> Just the usual/overall warnings for this chapter; that is: violence, injury, rather a lot of alcohol consumption, shitty parents. Also implied/referenced intimate partner violence against a minor character. Please let me know if you need any further details/warnings or if there's something I missed.
> 
> Big thanks to Lee and Kate for feedback on this chapter! I really hope y'all enjoy.

He was a week in the group home, with his sisters, before his social worker was able to get in touch with his birth father; during that time, Lottie didn’t speak to him, and he tried very hard to be okay with it, continually reminding himself it was what he deserved. He had _done that,_ even though he hadn’t been able to control himself, had been banging on the walls of his brain and screaming, unable to look away as something _else,_ something burning him from the inside out—he couldn’t escape from it, it was everywhere—poured gasoline with his hands and lit matches and locked the doors and did _something_ that kept them shut, listening to his parents screaming and pounding on the wood, Lottie screaming from behind him to help her get the other girls out and why wouldn’t he _move._ He didn’t respond, just stood, stock-still, blocking the door and watching the smoke creep through into the hall, and when the screaming stopped, he was ripped through with white-hot agony, searing up his throat and out of him as black crowded his vision.

The police didn’t ask him if he’d started the fire, and he wasn’t sure what he would say if they had. As it was, he didn’t say much of anything at all. His throat was sore, and he picked at loose threads on the scratchy hospital blanket and listened to the hiss of the oxygen rushing through the mask strapped to his face, which was a convenient excuse not to talk, just nodding and shaking his head and shrugging, all of which hurt as well.

The cops had eventually left—he didn’t really register anything about their appearances or voices, but he had the sensation that they were being careful with him—and the social workers, one after another, began cycling in and out of his room, and none of them would let him go see his sisters, who, they assured him, were safe at a temporary foster home and whom he could see once he had recovered, and he didn’t have the vocabulary or the voice to tell them that they _weren’t_ safe, but then again, he wasn’t sure if they were safe around him either, so he waited.

It was fucking boring; there was nothing to do except flip between the same few TV channels. He watched some talk shows and didn’t cause trouble for the nurses, even though every time one came in his heart clenched so tightly that he would have to clutch his chest to breathe through it and force himself to look into the nurse’s face and remind himself that it couldn’t, and never would be, his mom. That thought hurt, but not as much as the frenzied hope that the scrubbed figures kept igniting, and besides, he deserved to hurt. He had burned his parents alive, and he didn’t know why, and no one else seemed to, either. No one else seemed to know that he’d done it, and he was occasionally tempted to rip off the oxygen mask and scream _I did it please please please make me pay for it you can kill me if you want I deserve it,_ but he would always swallow it down, wince against the broken-glass feeling in his throat (a combination of smoke inhalation, the doctor had told him, and the way he had screamed endlessly in the ambulance, which he didn’t remember).

After an indeterminate period of time—he’d been _asleep for a little while, sweetie_ —he was allowed to be wheeled out by his personal social worker, as the tall woman named Jennifer had identified herself. She informed him that she would be taking him to the same foster home as his sisters while they tried to figure out what to do with them, and that he could tell her anything, and she was here to help him, and was his oxygen tank working, and he was supposed to use it as much as he could, and he would get used to the feeling of the cannula until he didn’t even notice it was there, and was he hungry? He shrugged and didn’t say anything, just let her keep talking as trees and fences and highway whipped by.

He doesn’t remember the foster home well—not even decently, really. He remembers it was crowded, and chaotic, and he had spent a lot of time in bed, breathing in and out with his oxygen tank beside him, and that Jennifer had been there frequently, and that Lottie refused to see him, which was all he could really think about even when his other sisters were with him. The twins attached to him like barnacles whenever they had the opportunity, and Fizzy had thrown an honest-to-god tantrum when she wasn’t allowed to sleep in Louis’ bed with him and had to go back to the girls’ room, but all he could really think about was that Lottie wasn’t there. He remembers hollowness, and the acute, aching sensation of something being missing, which made sense, but was horrible of him to feel when he had caused all of this, so he didn’t try to see her, either, just caught glimpses here and there, across the hallway or in the kitchen, and she would scurry away when she saw him.

He should’ve fought harder to stay with them, he knows. After the initial waking-dream feeling had worn off, he’d hated himself with renewed fury for not even really arguing with Jennifer when she explained to him that, since Mark hadn’t officially adopted him and his birth father was alive and had agreed to take him in, he had to go and live with him, while his sisters would stay in the system. They’d get adopted, she assured him, and her colleagues would try to make sure they stayed together, especially the twins. She told him not to worry, and he nodded, and asked where his birth father even lived. He traveled a lot for work, Jennifer told him, but he lived in Virginia Beach, which was where Louis was going. There were lots of young people, she said, and good schools, and things to do. He could learn to waterski, or fish. While the girls were still in foster care, he could see them, provided he gave notice and was accompanied by a parent, she explained, and if and when they were adopted, their adopted parents would probably understand his need to visit. A lot more families were doing open adoptions, she said, these days, and, regardless, he’d be alright, because he was strong, and he’d been through a lot, and she was proud of how much progress he was making, how he was talking more and and his lungs were getting better and he was up and about more of the day, none of which he had noticed, but apparently Jennifer had, and went on to explain that once he was medically cleared to travel—she couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t be, in a few more days—his birth father would come and get him, and he would get to go back to a normal life. A new normal, she clarified, and of course she didn’t expect him to adjust immediately and forget about his parents or the fire, but a parental figure and some stability and a change of scenery would be good for that, and besides, she would be checking in on him, and he had her card, and he could call her anytime. She hugged him, then, and he stiffened, an arm coming up to pat her back twice, awkwardly.

The twins hadn’t been old enough to understand what was going on, but the older girls could get the general gist, and Fizzy had burst into tears and jumped into his arms and wailed for what seemed like an interminable amount of time while Louis tried to soothe her. Lottie stood in the corner, staring at them and blinking furiously as she stroked the twins’ hair; they were starting to cry, now, confused and overwhelmed. Mrs. Thomson had come in at one point, to investigate the source of the ruckus. That night, she agreed that they could all sleep together, and congratulated Louis on finding his family, to which Lottie snapped that _they_ were his family, and Louis blinked, taken aback, before Lottie launched herself at him, clinging tight enough to bruise and shaking so hard it shook him, too.

Troy had come to get him two days later, and Louis can’t remember it. He knows, because of this, that it was awful.

He doesn’t have any clear recollections of the drive or the paperwork or any of the mundanities. His memory picks back up in Virginia (he doesn’t know how many days later), and he remembers that multiple times a day he would pick up the phone and look at the piece of paper with the foster home’s number on it and the card with Jennifer’s, and stand there, listening to the dial tone until it cut out, and then—he never knew how much time passed, exactly—he would set it down and shove the numbers back in his pocket and go upstairs, at first to sleep, and then, after some time had passed, to scream every obscenity he could think of and throw or break or hit everything he saw, snarling like a feral animal.

After close to a week of this new, violent routine, Troy sat him down—Louis put up a fight, for the sake of it, but he hadn’t won—and (Louis remembers it perfectly, the tone and timbre and the words) he’d said, “How would you like to get some payback?”

“What?” he had said, after a moment.

“What if,” Troy said, studying him carefully, as if he were some small vicious creature backed into a corner, “what if I told you that the thing that killed your mom and stepdad is out there, and that I’d like your help finding it and kicking its ass, Louis?”

“It?” he repeated, dumbly.

Troy gave him another long, careful look. “The demon.”

“ _Demon?_ ”

“Yes, demon. They’re real; so is just about everything else, but a demon killed your parents, and it used your body to do it.” Troy’s voice was steady and calm.

“What—”

“It possessed you. I bet you felt like you weren’t controlling your body, or like you were in there, but someone else was calling the shots.”

He nodded.

Troy continued. “And do you remember noticing any black smoke, or a smell like rotten eggs?”

“There were rotten eggs in the fridge,” Louis said. “I threw them out that morning.” It was the most he’d said at once in weeks, and it was a strain on his throat. He coughed and breathed through his nose.

The man who was apparently his father shook his head. “You were smelling sulfur, which is like demon B.O.” He paused, like he was leaving space for laughter, and then sighed. “Ok. Hey, look, what I’m saying is it wasn’t your fault.” He was clearly trying to be gentle, but seemed unused to the mechanics of it.

Louis felt his throat close again, his tongue going gummy and thick. _It was,_ he thought. _It was my fault._ “What do you mean?” he said.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Troy repeated. “Demons are real. You were possessed by one. It’s the same one I’ve been after for a long time.”

“You…?”

“I hunt demons,” his father said, “and other things, too, ghosts, vampires, stuff like that—but mostly this demon. You know…” He trailed off, staring at the wall behind Louis with a muscle ticking in his jaw for a long time, and then sighed. “Your mother,” he started, and then went silent again.

Louis bit his tongue against the flurry of questions suddenly crowding his mouth. He hadn’t felt this way since the fire— _curious,_ energetic—but he wasn’t about to interrupt his father, who for _years_ Louis had wondered about, concocting far-fetched stories as to why he had left them when Louis was a newborn: maybe he was an astronaut sent on an urgent mission to Mars; maybe he was in the CIA and was working to bring down a dictatorship somewhere; maybe he was climbing Mt. Everest and having a hard time getting down, but when he did, he’d come straight back home.

He’d stopped, eventually, once Mark had become a permanent presence and his sisters had been born and he had taken seriously to his role as big brother. They didn’t talk about his biological dad; he thought about him less, but with growing bitterness, and by the time _it_ had happened, he didn’t bother trying to figure out why his father had left anymore.

But now, here was what seemed like it might be an explanation, as fantastical as the ones he’d dreamed up as a kid: his dad hunted monsters. He wasn’t sure why that meant he had to leave Louis’ mom with no money and a newborn to look after, but he probably had a good reason. The hope in his chest thudded frantically as he waited for Troy to find the words.

Finally, finally, he looked back up at Louis and began talking. “I really loved your mom. I did. We didn’t really work so well together, but I loved her, and I wanted to stick around. But that demon, the one who possessed you...it’s got a grudge against me, against my family. Hunters down the line; I don’t know why it’s got it out for us specifically, but it does, and…” He screwed up his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “When Jo told me she was pregnant, I was so happy, and scared out of my fucking wits. Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Louis says. “Mom washed my mouth out with soap kind of a lot.”

Troy’s mouth crooked up into a half-grin at that. “Tough as nails, that woman. Always was.” He paused for a while longer, blinking a little rapidly. “I got more and more nervous as time went on. There were...things, little things that kept happening, hard to explain why they got me freaked, but they were all things that pointed to this demon knowing where I was and who I was with.

“It, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Right after you were born, it showed up, in the flesh. Well. In someone’s flesh. Uh, your maternal grandmother, actually.”

Louis swallowed. “Did she—mom said she died in a car accident, though.”

A slow head-shake. “That _is_ what she thinks happened. She didn’t lie to you.”

“What really happened to her?”

Troy sighed. “Demon possession is...complicated. Hard on the body. And this demon is a nasty son of a bitch.”

“What happened?”

“Your grandmother came over to help out, ‘cause we were both exhausted. Your mom, especially. She wouldn’t let you out of her sight, but her mom—well, the demon pretending to be her mom—convinced her she should take a nap, and that she would look after you for a couple of hours while both of us slept a little.

“Next thing I knew, she was in the bedroom, and it was...it had you, and you were tiny, and it could’ve…” He trailed off, seeming to struggle for the words. “It was a really near miss. I managed to get rid of it.” His tone was oddly flat, all of a sudden, and his face hardened again. “You weren’t safe with me around. Neither of you were. So I left, and it followed me.”

“Oh,” Louis said.

“I didn’t have much of a choice.” It wasn’t an _I’m sorry,_ but Louis had the sense that it was as close as he would get. “I thought with me out of the picture you and your mom would be safe,” he said, in that same flat tone, staring at the wall. “I was wrong about that, obviously.”

He snorted, and Louis all of a sudden wanted to cry or scream or do _something_ that expressed the overwhelming rage and grief and confusion and horror that was welling up anew. His mom and dad were dead, and he couldn’t be with his sisters, and this man was his father, now, and a demon had possessed him and caused all of it.

“Woah,” Troy snapped, and grasped Louis by the shoulders, tight. “Hey. Listen to me. Yelling and throwing yourself around doesn’t do shit. Cut it out.” Louis kept struggling, and his father gripped harder. “You wanna fucking help me kill this thing or not?” he barked.

Louis froze, one hand clawing at Troy’s forearm. He nodded, after a moment. He did.

“Okay,” Troy said, a little quieter, and let Louis go; the places where he’d dug in ached a little. “Then let’s get to work. Tomorrow morning you’re up at 5:30 sharp.”

“Why—?”

“5:30 sharp, Louis. Not negotiable.” His tone had an edge to it that made Louis nod mutely. “Good. You wanna order pizza?” he said, like an order. Louis nodded again, and Troy smiled tightly and ruffled his hair. “I’ll call. What do you like?”

“Pepperoni,” Louis said quietly. “If that’s okay.” He wasn’t sure where this suddenly meek and scared version of himself had come from, but he found that didn’t want to argue, all of a sudden.

“That’s fine,” his father said. “I’ll call. Go clean your room.”

“Okay.”

Troy looked like he wanted to say something else, but decided against it, and turned around to walk into the kitchen. Louis stayed, frozen to the spot, for a minute, watching his father’s broad back receding, until Troy turned his head a little like he was going to look over his shoulder, and then Louis scurried upstairs and began putting the room back in order.

*

Three days after they arrive at Niall’s, Stasha gets spotted at a gas station a few miles outside of Spokane. Niall doesn’t protest Louis immediately packing up the car—it barely takes half an hour; he’s not prone to unpacking, as a rule—and hooks them up with more holy water, salt, and hex bags than they’ll probably ever need.

“Just in case,” he says. “I don’t want to have to come scrape your arses off the highway.”

“We’ll do our best,” Louis says dryly, triple checking that everything in the trunk-arsenal is where it should be: it is. He slams the trunk shut and locks it. “No promises, though.”

“Ah, get the fuck out of here,” Niall says, slapping his shoulder and squeezing for a moment. “Be careful, y’hear? Let me know how things are going.”

“Will do, Nialler.” Louis squirms for a moment, and then brings Niall into a one-armed hug that’s surprisingly tight. “See you soon.”

“You’d fuckin’ better,” Niall says, through a grin, and takes a step back. “Where’s Liam?”

“Checking police reports one more time.”

“Didn’t he just do that an hour ago?”

Louis shrugs. “Cops, man.”

“Ah. He’s alright, though.”

“I guess he is. Never would’ve thought.”

“People surprise you,” Niall says sagely.

“Ooh, deep. Thanks for the nugget of wisdom,” Louis teases. He ruffles Niall’s hair and claps him on the shoulder once more. “You take care of yourself, too. Don’t die trying to clean the gutters.”

“ _You’re_ cleaning my gutters the next time you’re here, you scamp. Go on, Liam’s coming.”

“Payno!” Louis shouts.

“Told you not to call me that,” Liam grumbles, tossing his backpack into the backseat. “Thanks for your hospitality, Niall.”

“My pleasure,” Niall says, amused.

“Get in the car,” Louis says. “Let’s not make a scene.”

“I wasn’t making a scene _,_ ” Liam starts to protest.

“Sure you weren’t, Agent Payne.”

“I told you not to call me that, either—”

Louis snorts, and Niall cackles. “Mate,” Niall says, “that’s not a fight you’re going to win.”

“Niall’s right.” Louis nods. “This is my revenge for all the times you threw me in the clink. Take your medicine, Payno.”

Liam rolls his eyes, but waves another goodbye to Niall and drops into the passenger seat, immediately unfolding the map from the glove compartment.

Louis hugs Niall once more, and neither of them speak, and Louis’ glad for it.

“I’ll call you,” he says, when they break apart, and Niall nods and heads back toward the house, half-hopping because he’d left his cane inside, and Louis watches him from the driver’s seat before turning his attention to Liam and the route he’s plotted.

*

The gas station is a bust, predictably. Farmers nearby report cattle mutilations, and the cashier at the store where Stasha had been seen had quit a few days ago. They check on her, but she doesn’t have much to say, and nothing of use. Louis and Liam step outside for a moment, and quickly agree that there’s little point in telling her that the young girl who’d upended a truck, which came within inches of crushing her, was, in fact, a demon. Louis believes in truthfulness, in giving people all the information possible, but there’s no reason this demon would revisit this woman, and he gets the strong sense she’d rather put it all behind her.

Still, he leaves her his cell phone number, scrawled on the back of one of his FBI cards that sport one of Niall’s numbers on the front (just in case someone questions his fake badge).

“This is my personal phone,” he tells her, and doesn’t try to get her to meet his eyes. “If you want to talk more about what happened, or you want updates on the case, or you remember anything, you can call, okay?” Liam’s better with this kind of thing, really, and has _legitimately_ done it, so he leaves him with the girl—Cara—and waits in the car for him to come back out of the house.

“How’s she doing?” he asks, when Liam’s fastening his seatbelt. The microfiber of his fed suit is itchy, and too hot with the sun beating through the window. He scratches his thigh.

“Same as she was when you talked to her,” Liam replies. His suit’s the same one he was always in when Louis saw him—he’d had four, but hunting requires packing light—and it’s made of decent, breathable fabric. He sits perfectly still and looks over at Louis. “You ok?”

“Fine,” he says, twisting so he can see out of the back windshield. “Did she say anything else?”

“Nah. It wasn’t you, she just didn’t want to talk.”

“Makes sense.”

“That was good of you, to give her your number.”

Louis puts the Camaro back into drive and eases onto the accelerator, listening closely to the hum of the motor. She sounds good: smooth with a little bit of growl. New tires wouldn’t hurt, but it’s not urgent. “Not a big deal,” he says. “She might remember something.”

Liam looks like he wants to say something, but pinches his mouth shut, turns the radio on and starts fiddling with the knob, looking for local stations. Louis raises his eyebrows and decides to give him a chance. His “driver picks the music” rule isn’t as hard and fast as he makes it out to be.

Sometimes it is. “What the fuck is this?” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Is it supposed to be rap?”

“Twenty One Pilots,” Liam says, and turns it up a notch. “Do you _actually_ live under a rock?”

“Watch it. I can and will leave you on the side of the road. This sucks, turn it off.”

“I like it,” Liam grouses, but hits the CD button on the console and doesn’t complain about Pearl Jam, for once, even joins in with Louis singing along to “Better Man.” He’s got an incredible voice; he could probably sing professionally, if he wanted. Instead, he’s slumming it with Louis, and seems content with it, which is bizarre but not something Louis’ going to question too much.

“So,” Louis says, after a little while, “where do we go from here?”

“I’ve been doing some research,” Liam says, ignoring Louis’ muttered _of course you have._ “No demon signs in the last couple of days; it seems to be laying low. No one else has seen her, from what it looks like.”

They pull into the motel lot and park in front of room 4. Louis yanks the parking brake back harshly. “Alright. We’ll keep an eye out. She’s probably gone underground, you’re right.”

They unpack quickly and quietly. Cash is a little tight when Louis counts; they'll go out tonight, then.

Liam had huffed and gone on a somewhat nonsensical ramble about ethics the first time Louis had asked him to come hustle pool, but he’d given it up quickly. The combination of his baby face and incredible aim make him a natural, and he _likes_ it, more importantly. Louis takes a lot of pleasure in these little corruptions. Liam’s incredibly tightly wound, but Louis’ getting him to mellow a bit. It’s his project, when he isn’t working on demon-tracking, and it’s fun.

Hustling pool is fun. It’s nerve-wracking, too, which makes it more fun. Louis’ usually playing guys two or three times his size and at least twice his age, and they always fall for his _drunk and bratty_ act and then gape when all of a sudden he’s sinking all his shots and taking wads of their money with a smile. If there’s a scuffle, he’s more than able to hold his own, and now he has Liam, too, and together they can make twice as much as he and Zayn ever did.

One hour in, everything’s going swimmingly. Louis’ barely buzzed, but he’s stumbling and slurring just enough that it’s believable without being _too much._ A couple of times, he’s even managed to bring himself to the verge of fake tears. He figures one more round of making an idiot of himself, and then he’ll cash out. The bet’s already at 400. He’s trying to walk out tonight with at least a grand. Possibly a fuck, if he plays his cards right; the guy at the bar has been making eyes at him all night, and he’s winked and swayed his hips a little when he’s passed by.

“Hey, c’mon, man,” Liam says, taking a firm hold of Louis’ bicep. “That’s enough.”

“‘Scuse me,” Big Biker Dude retorts, crowding in on Liam’s space and squaring his shoulders. “Let him be. We’re havin’ fun.”

“We’re having fun!” Louis repeats, wiggling the pool cue between his fingers. He drops it and giggles. “Don’t be a buzzkill. I’m a big boy.”

“Why don’t you run along, now, sweetheart. He doesn’t need a babysitter.”

Liam frowns exaggeratedly, and then heaves a sigh. “Okay. But this is the last game, Lou, y’hear?”

“Lee- _yum,”_ Louis whines, bending to pick up his cue. “I’m fine. Your shot,” he says to Big Biker Dude, who takes it, sinking his 12.

Louis takes a long time lining up his shot, which will miss his own 12 by a mile and should bounce the cue ball off the side and into the pocket, at which point he’ll run his hand through his hair and curse himself. Carefully, he sets it up, fumbling his cue very slightly, and shoots, biting back a self-satisfied smile at the way Big Biker Dude snickers. He’s really excited to empty this one’s wallet.

Except that the cue ball doesn’t miss the 12. It sinks it into the nearest pocket, then bounces off the edge opposite Louis and sinks his 7, 9, and then the 8. He can’t control the way he gapes for a second, but he recovers quickly, and eyes Big Biker Dude.

Big Biker Dude’s expression morphs from shock to anger in the space of a second. His fists are meaty and large; he’s alone, thankfully, but Louis gets the feeling his buddies aren’t too far. He glances around the room frantically: Liam’s gone to the bathroom, most likely, maybe outside for a cigarette if Louis is really unlucky. The bar’s mostly empty, and the guy who seemed interested is nowhere to be found. Louis is packing, but he really doesn’t want to pull out his glock if he can help it.

Something moves in the far corner, distracting him temporarily from Big Biker Dude’s increasingly irate sputtering. He squints, and the shadows move again, more distinctly—definitely a figure—and just as he’s about to turn around and try to placate his would-be hustle, the figure in the corner moves into the sallow light, his slightly-too-large features thrown into sharp relief.

 _Fuck it._ Louis goes for the gun, which at least makes Big Biker Dude slow down, eyes wide. He scans the room again—everyone’s looking at them, but no one’s made a move, and Liam is still nowhere to be found—and before he can take a step forward, Harry’s thrown Big Biker Dude against a wall, where he’s pinned, struggling and gasping.

“What the fuck?” Louis snaps. He feels foolish, brandishing a weapon that can’t do anything to a demon besides wound its host. Still, he doesn’t want to tuck it back into his waistband, the weight in his hand making him feel irrationally safer. Harry’s sidling up beside him, now, and Louis feels the edge of the pool table digging into the meat of his thighs.

“What the fuck?” he repeats, trying to keep his tone steady. He runs through potential explanations for Harry’s presence and actions and comes up empty-handed.

“You looked like you could use a hand,” Harry says, sounding oddly unsure of himself. He seems to notice, and frowns minutely before cocking his hip and saying, haughtily, “It’s polite to say thank you,” but he’s biting his lip and overdoing it, and Louis heard him before and feels suddenly sure that the smooth sweet-talker he’d met before was a mask, and that whatever Harry is, he’s confusing as all Hell, which makes him that much more dangerous.

“What the fuck,” Louis says again, “is your fucking deal? Why are you here? Are you fucking following me?”

“The world doesn’t revolve around you,” Harry snaps. He keeps worrying at his lip. “Neither do I, as a matter of fact.”

“Then why the fuck are you here,” Louis spits, “and why the fuck did you just do that?” Impulsively, he punctuates with a hard shove to Harry’s chest, which actually sends him stumbling backwards a bit.

Louis braces for a blow. It doesn’t come.

Hesitantly, he lowers his arms so he can see. The line between Harry’s brows is practically a canyon, and he’s chewing his lips so hard they’ve turned a vibrant, deep pink. Louis fixates on them for a few seconds before reminding himself that they’re _not Harry’s lips,_ they’re the person he’s riding’s.

Fuck it. Louis’ going to exorcise this bastard; he’s not sure how, but he’ll figure it out. The poor kid in there is probably screaming for help right now, and Louis feels sick that he didn’t even _try_ the last time he ran into Harry. Maybe he can—

“I don’t know,” Harry says quietly, snapping Louis out of his strategizing. “I don’t know, alright? I was in town—not because of you, honestly—and, well. I dunno.”

Louis laughs, semi-hysterically. “Great explanation, dude. I totally believe you and you’re not at all lying out of your ass. I completely forgot how honest you are as a species.”

Harry’s eyes flash red for a split second. “I’m not lying,” he says, voice edged and dark, but there’s a little note of fear in there, too. Maybe not fear, exactly, but unsurety. He sighs and shakes his hair out, raking it back with a hand. “Why would I lie?”

Louis snorts. “Do you need a reason? I don’t know, uh, tricking me into letting my guard down so you can sic your hounds on me?”

“They’re not here,” Harry says, and then looks up, eyes a little wary. “I got a dogsitter.”

“Oh, well that’s great. Responsible pet ownership.”

“Very important,” Harry says, carefully. His mouth is starting to curve up, his stance settling into something a little easier. He doesn’t _look_ like he’s about to pounce, but that’s probably the point. Lull Louis into a false sense of security with his strange sense of humor and stranger mannerisms.

Louis still can’t help playing along. Almost more maddening than Harry’s whole deal is Louis’ bone-stupid reaction to it, intermittently forgetting he’s talking to a demon and not a weird, funny, oddly-dressed boy. That boy’s in there, somewhere, and Louis has an obligation to help him, but he keeps up the playful bickering. “Do they have an SPCA downstairs, then? Can you adopt rescue hellhounds?” He’s not even paying attention to his surroundings anymore. Harry’s got his full attention.

“Mine are rescues, actually,” Harry says lightly. He sounds genuinely affectionate. “I got them after their previous owner was killed by a hunter.”

Louis snorts. “Are you gonna want me to apologize for that? Not gonna happen. And how _do_ you kill a demon, anyway?”

“There are ways,” Harry says evasively. “And no, it’s fine. He was actually a huge asshole.”

“Oh. Well. There’s a surprise. Asshole demon. Never would’ve guessed.”

“We do have personalities,” Harry says. “Hell would be really, really boring if we didn’t.” He frowns. “Why am I telling you this? You probably want to send me back. Or kill me, if you knew how.” The next bite to his lip does actually draw blood, and a pink tongue darts out to lick over the tear.

“You’re right,” Louis says. “I do want to send you back to the pit and free the poor son of a bitch you’re riding.”

Harry glances briefly down at his host’s body, as if he’s just remembered it’s there. “He’s not in here,” he says. “He’s brain-dead. He was about to be taken off life support.”

It’s probably a lie, but it gives Louis pause. “What, so you’re riding an ethically sourced meatsuit?”

“More or less.” Harry shrugs. “I’m a vegetarian.”

Louis can’t help but bark a laugh at that. “God, you’re the weirdest fucking demon I’ve ever met,” he says, swiping quickly at the corners of his eyes. He jolts, remembering they’re not alone, and looks around the room; everyone seems to have gone back to what they were doing, not sparing a glance at Louis’ half-cocked gun or the way Harry’s crowding him, or even Big Biker Dude, who’s still pinned to the wall, although he seems to have given up struggling. “Wait, why isn’t anyone looking at us?”

Harry waggles his fingers. “Magic.”

Louis stiffens. “Mind control?”

“No,” Harry says, “no, no, not mind control. More of a...glamor? I’m just making us look boring. I don’t—I mean, I can’t do that, outside of the context of a deal, and I don’t do it in deals, anyway, I don’t like it.”

“Are you even a demon?” Louis asks. “And if you are, why haven’t you killed me?”

Harry cocks his head and furrows his brow. “I am,” he says slowly, “and I don’t really have a reason to kill you, do I?”

“Like fuck you don’t. Remember how we met?”

“That was…” Harry smiles slightly. “...inconvenient.”

“I’d say it was a little more than that.”

“Full of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay.”

Louis blinks. “What?” He blinks some more.

“It was a joke.”

“Oh.”

Harry waggles his eyebrows in a stupidly charming manner. “Well, that’s interesting. You are, though, generally. Interesting, I mean.”

“I’m _interesting?_ ”

“I just said that,” Harry grumbles, pouting slightly. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“Oh jeez, I don’t know, buddy, maybe the part where you’re a _minion of Satan_?”

“I’m not a minion,” Harry snaps. “I don’t just…” he trails off, and shakes out his hair again. “I’m trying to fly under my boss’s radar,” he says, nervously chewing on his split lip and fidgeting. “She’s a bit pissed with me at the moment.”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Harry winces, very briefly. “I’m staying topside for a while. Harder for her to find me up here.”

“What did you do?”

“Not that important,” Harry says dismissively. “I was, er...I was wondering if you might be interested in making a deal.”

Did he hear that right? “A deal? With you?”

“Yes,” Harry says. “Not for your soul or anything. Just...protection.”

“Protection? _”_

“Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” Harry sounds exasperated and a little amused. “Yes, protection. I checked out the wards you have on your car and motel room; I can’t get past them or see inside. Who makes your hex bags?”

“I do,” Louis snaps. He pauses. “Well. Some of them are Ni—another hunter. And thanks for the compliment, I guess.” It _is_ good to know—that is, if he believes that Harry’s telling the truth, which, bizarrely, he instinctively does—that their wards apparently work well enough that he’s got a demon complimenting him on the spellwork.

“You’re welcome,” Harry says. “So, like, here’s what ‘m offering: you let me past your wards, and then put them back up. They should trap me, if you’ve done them right, which I know you have.”

“And in return?” Louis’ immensely skeptical, but there is a pleading note in Harry’s voice, like Louis’ the one in the better bargaining position here, and he should probably know everything he can about this demon if he’s going to keep following Louis around and fucking with his nights. Always good to have all the information possible.

“Whatever you want,” Harry says. “Within reason. I won’t do mind control stuff, and I can’t bring people back from the dead unless they _just_ died. Even then it can be tricky. But, er, pretty much whatever.”

“So, wait, back up—you want us to hide you from your boss? So she can find you, then?”

“Yes,” Harry says, mouth twisting. “It’s harder than it would be in Hell, but there’s things, signs, that humans can’t pick up on. I can throw her off, but I can’t, like, hide myself completely.”

“Sounds tiring.”

“Yeah.” Harry’s quiet.

“So...if she can track you, does that mean you can track other demons?” An idea is starting to spark insistently in his brain, and he can’t help asking, even if the idea is stupid and not something he’d actually do in a million years; he likes to think about every option, is all.

Harry nods. “I’m not the greatest with it, but yeah, for the most part.”

Louis’ brain is whirring so quickly he can’t keep up; all of a sudden it hits him, fully, that he’s standing here bargaining with a demon who wants to be _let into_ _their wards_ , and where the _fuck_ is Liam?

“Outside.” Louis jolts; he hadn’t realized he’d said that out loud. “He’s having a chat with one of the barkeeps, I believe.”

Louis snorts. “Asshole. He was supposed to back me up.” He gestures toward Big Biker Dude. _Actually_ … “Where’d the money go? By the way, I was going to kick his ass in the next round, I didn’t need your freaky demonic help.”

“In his pocket.” Harry gestures. “You can take it, he can’t move.”

“Are you gonna do anything to him?” Louis fishes in the right pocket of the jacket, and sure enough, there’s a huge wad of cash. He leaves a 20, because he’s not a _total_ asshole. Not all the time.

“No,” Harry says mildly. “At any rate, you were going to do something to him. I was mediating.”

Louis snorts. “Sure.” Now that he’s got the cash and a slightly clearer head—he must’ve drank more than he thought—he’s itching to get back to the car, double their wards, and get the fuck out of town.

“I’m gonna go,” Louis says, jerking a thumb toward the door. “Good talk. Please leave me the fuck alone.”

He doesn’t look over his shoulder as he exits the bar, fully expecting to be jerked back, not allowed to leave until he’s agreed to whatever it is Harry wants, but there’s nothing, and no one following him when he _does_ glance quickly behind him.

Liam’s waiting by the car. “How’d it go?” Louis waves the cash at him. “You were in there a long time.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Louis says. He downs most of a fifth when they get back to the motel and sleeps, brutally, for twelve hours.

*

“That’s a lot of hex bags,” Liam says mildly, standing in the doorframe.

“That it is,” Louis agrees, tying the string on another and adding it to the pile.

“Is there a reason there are so many hex bags?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind telling me what it is?”

“Can’t be too careful.”

“Louis, what the fuck is going on?” Liam’s not fucking around—he’s using his cop voice, which Louis hates—and, admittedly, Louis has been acting like a fucking wackjob since he woke up, and this is truly an unreasonable number of hex bags. He might have enough to shield a whole city block, at this point. That probably warrants an explanation.

“Demon,” he says shortly.

Liam frowns. “The one we’re tracking?”

“Nah,” Louis says, counting out three tiny bones and laying them on the canvas square in front of him. “Different one. Run into him a few times now, I’d like not to anymore.”

“Him?”

Louis nods. “Yep.”

“Wait,” Liam says, realization dawning on his face. “Does this have anything to do with that crossroads demon you took on by yourself and then acted weird for, like, a whole week after that?”

“I wasn’t acting weird,” Louis argues. He was, but that’s not the point.

“Did you piss it off? Is that why it’s following us?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “He says he’s not following us, but I don’t buy it.”

“He said he’s not following us?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“So you talked to him.”

“Yeah.” Louis yanks too hard on the twine and it snaps, sending the contents of the hex bag scattering across the desk. “Fuck. He showed up last night.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I’m telling you now. I don’t know what the fuck his game is, and I don’t want to find out.”

“Did he try anything?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“What happened, then?”

“He fucking...I don’t know, fucked with the game, and then threw the guy I was playing up against the wall.”

“And?”

“We talked for a minute.”

“About?”

“Jesus Christ, is this a fucking holding room?” Louis snaps. He keeps fucking up the bags he’s trying to start, so he just wraps and unwraps twine around his finger. “Nothing important.”

“He was just there to chat?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “He wanted to make a deal. I told him to fuck off. Hence the hex bags.”

“No better way to say ‘fuck off,’” Liam agrees. “What, did he try to buy your soul?” He sounds anxious all of a sudden, like that’s something Louis might conceivably do, which is nuts.

“No. He wanted to, like...I don’t know. Tag along with us.”

“What? Why?”

“That’s what I said.” He starts counting the bags. He’s not exactly sure what he’s going to do with them, but it feels good to have them, just in case. He hopes Harry wasn’t lying about not being able to get through them. He can’t see why he would, but he also can’t ever see why the fuck demons do anything except to be evil, and Harry is particularly unfathomable; Louis gets sucked under quickly when he starts to wade into that space in his mind, and he has to be vigilant about staying out. “Demons, man.”

Liam’s face is scrunched and thoughtful. “But, like, he must have had a reason.”

“He’s trying to hide from his boss, apparently.”

“That’s like...weirdly petty, isn’t it? For a demon.”

“I guess. I mean, I don’t know. They’re pretty fucking brutal with each other, from what I’ve heard. Don’t think they’re big on mercy.”

“What did he do?”

Louis shrugs. “No idea, he didn’t say. Anyway, it’s not like he would’ve told the truth. It’s probably all bullshit. Demons are all the fucking same.”

“Would it be the worst idea, though? What did he offer in return?”

“It would be the worst idea,” Louis spits. “I don’t give a shit what he’s offering, because he’s a _goddamn demon,_ Liam.”

Liam holds his palms up. “Woah. Sorry. It was just a question.”

“Sorry.” Louis sighs and slumps back into the chair. “Just frustrated. I hate demon shit.”

“Explains why we’re tracking one, then.”

Louis can feel the unpleasant way his mouth twists. “It’s personal.”

“Are we gonna talk about it?”

“If we need to,” Louis says. His eyes sting. “Can we find a job? I want to kill a fucking monster.” Something straightforward and satisfying.

“Sure,” Liam says, after a minute. “Saving people. Hunting things.”

“Exactly,” Louis replies. _The family business._

*

“The most important thing to know about demons,” Troy said, inspecting Louis’ most recent batch of silver bullets, “is that you can’t trust a goddamn thing they say. Assume everything’s a lie.” He paused. “These are good. Nice job.”

“Thanks.”

“How much silver is there left?”

“Not a ton.” Louis shook the bowl; maybe enough for two or three more bullets.

Troy looked for a while, and then decided, “You can put those back away, we’ve got enough. It’s just one werewolf.”

Louis did, and locked the box of silver scraps before returning it to the bottom of the duffel. “Are we going tonight?”

Troy shook his head. “Tomorrow. Want to do some target practice before we go in there. Your aim’s gotten a lot better, but a little more practice never hurt anyone. The aim is to kill this sucker in one shot. We need to stake out the house, too.”

“Yes, sir. Tonight?”

“Tonight,” Troy confirmed. “Now, I was saying. Demons.”

“Demons.”

“I picked up some signs about two hundred miles west of here. That’s where we’re headed when we finish this job, so I want you to go in prepared.”

“Yes sir.”

“As I was saying, demons lie. They lie like nothing you’ve ever seen before, and they’ll put a little bit of the truth in there, too, just to fuck you up even more. Don’t listen, okay?”

“Don’t listen.”

“You sound like you want to say something.”

“Well.” Louis paused. “Isn’t the point to get information from them?”

“Yes.” Troy said, and bent down, rummaging in his backpack and retrieving a vial of what Louis was pretty sure was holy water, another of a slightly cloudy liquid he wasn’t sure about, and an old, brutal-looking syringe, like something he’d once seen in a haunted asylum and shuddered slightly at the sight of. “This is where a little bit of enhanced interrogation comes in handy.”

Louis frowned. “Isn’t that what they call waterboarding and stuff instead of calling it torture?”

“It is,” Troy agreed. “Good one. They teach you that in school?”

Louis shook his head. “I was watching the news.”

Troy chuckled. “Well. Who’da thunk it? Good kid.” He ruffled Louis’ hair. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were demons involved in that. Nasty sons of bitches.”

“In torture, you mean?”

“Mhm.”

“So...we torture them?”

“They’re not people, Louis,” Troy said flatly. “They used to be, but most of ‘em have forgotten they ever were, and get their kicks from causing as much pain as they can. It’s not the same thing. Son, you’ve got to stop being squeamish about this. First the werewolves, now…”

“Sorry,” Louis said quietly.

“It’s okay. Your mom did a good job raising you, teaching you right and wrong and that stuff, but there’s different rules when you’re hunting. It’s kill or get killed. You can’t get caught up in having sympathy for monsters. It’ll make you hesitate, and that’ll get you killed.”

Louis nodded.

“With demons, especially. They’ll exploit whatever weakness they can. You’re too trusting, kid. You can’t give ‘em the benefit of the doubt. Mercy isn’t a good quality in a hunter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright. We’ll talk about the plan on the way. I’m gonna take the lead on interrogation, but I need you to have my back.”

“Ok.”

“Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Good.” Troy gathered the silver bullets—13 of them—and gestured for Louis to hold out his hand. “Good job on these. Clean the guns, and load two pistols with these. I’ll go get food.” He didn’t have to say, _by the time I come back or you don’t eat._ It was understood, and they didn’t speak of it anymore, or really think about it, in the same sort of way you never thought about gravity or how murder was wrong. Well. That got complicated, sometimes. This didn’t, though, which was oddly comforting in its own way. Some things didn’t bend; his father was one of them, and it had taken a while for him to realize this, but he knew it now.

Louis nodded. “Will do,” he said, and leaned into the squeeze Troy gave his shoulder.

*

When Zayn left, it was in pieces, not all at once, but there was always going to be one fight that sealed it, simply by virtue of being the last.

This was the one Louis found himself dwelling on the most, even though it wasn’t the worst or the ugliest or the longest. Those had all come in the months before, and they would end when they both screamed themselves hoarse or one stormed out, and would be followed the next day by a long, thick silence throughout a long drive, and when they stopped for the night they’d get a beer, and wordlessly clink their glasses together, and it would be over, and they wouldn’t talk about it until the next time they boiled over.

The night that ended with Zayn leaving for good was just another in the series, not the knock-down drag-out Louis had been imagining.

“I’m not gonna stop,” Zayn said, plainly. He rolled another t-shirt and placed it in his bag. “I’m not gonna tell you to take it or leave it, either. You obviously can’t live with it, and I can’t live like this, so I’m going.”

“Okay,” Louis said, picking at the deteriorating paint on the wall next to him. It might have been lead; he didn’t give a shit. “So it’s my fault, then. I get it.”

Zayn sighed. “I didn’t say that, Louis—”

“You fucking did.” Louis didn’t bother trying to keep from raising his voice; restraint was too much energy, and he was sick of it. “Poor you, having to deal with my unreasonable standards and being so _fucking_ stubborn. I don’t blame you, truly. It must be an absolute misery.”

“I didn’t—”

“You _did_ say that, word for word.”

Zayn sighed again, and picked up a pair of jeans. “Whatever. Okay. Just cut me off and put words in my mouth, it’s fine. Every time I try to _explain_ — _”_

“I’ve heard your explanation—”

“Again! You don’t let me fucking _talk._ ”

Louis rolled his eyes and went back to picking at the paint. “Alright. Talk. Explain _working with a demon_ in a way that changes things. Go on. I’m listening.” He could feel the harsh line his lips were making, and the beginnings of a hot, throbbing lump forming under his tonsils. He swallowed, pushing it down a few millimeters.

“Why don’t _you_ explain why it’s un-for-fucking-givabl e to work with a demon if it’s _helping us?”_

Louis scoffed. “Us? _”_

“Yes, _us,_ Louis, because god forbid _I_ make a decision or do something for myself.”

“That’s not what this is about—”

“Like Hell it’s not,” Zayn said. “Like Hell this isn’t about you hunting for one fucking demon you have a personal grudge against and not even _considering_ trying to do something bigger, something that could help _everyone ._ ”

“By being buddy-buddy with a demon.”

Zayn dropped the shirt he was folding and ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “ _Yes,_ by working with a demon. There’s a bigger picture here. _Killing_ demons, Louis, not just exorcising them.”

“We know how to kill demons. That’s why we’re looking for the goddamned Colt, remember?”

“The magic gun that may or may not exist, and may or may not work, and may or may not have any fucking bullets left, if we can find it, which is a big if! And I’m talking about killing demons without killing the hosts. _Helping people_. Isn’t that what this is about?”

“I’m all for helping people, you know that, but _you can’t fucking trust demons_! You can’t! How many times do I have to say that? What’s she getting out of it, here? Think about that.”

“Not all demons are the same, Louis!”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t make unfair generalizations about a species that comes directly from Hell.”

“They used to be human,” Zayn argued. “They used to—”

“But not anymore,” Louis snapped. “That’s the fucking _point.”_

“What, so no demon could ever want to do something good?”

A paint chip the size of Louis’ thumbnail came loose and fell to the ground. “No, Zayn, they couldn’t! What’s her motive? Have you asked her? Or have you two been too busy screwing?”

Zayn was silent, open-mouthed for a moment, before hissing, “That has nothing—”

“We don’t have to hash it out again. I don’t care what you do with your dick, but when it affects your decision making, it becomes my problem.”

“It’s not affecting my decision making.”

Louis dug his nail under the edge of the paint surrounding the bare patch he’d already picked. “Ok. Sure. Whatever you wanna tell yourself, sweetheart.”

The sound of a zipper being pulled shut rang out, unnaturally loudly. “This is the problem _,_ Louis. You don’t trust me. You just fucking don’t.”

Louis snorted. “Can’t imagine why.”

“I lied ‘cause I knew you’d react like this! Everything’s black and white with you and you _refuse_ to see it any other way.”

“Right, right, I’m the one who’s being unreasonable. I get it.”

“I just—you know what, I don’t want to have this fight again. I’m gonna go.” Zayn threw his hands up and pushed back the chair he’d been sitting on, violently, as he stood, and Louis _hated_ the way he instinctively flinched and his arms went up in front of his face of their own accord, and he hated the way when he lowered them, Zayn was looking at him like he was some kind of wretched, piteous creature that he felt beholden to because it was so fucking _pathetic._

“Okay,” Louis made himself say, holding his arms firmly at his sides. “Go ahead. Probably better this way.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing, Lou.” The nickname stung, and he flinched, again. “Look, I know you…” Zayn trailed off and sighed. “I know you’ve had a really fucking hard time, and your dad was a bastard—”

“You don’t know _shit,_ ” Louis bit out. “Okay? You don’t know. Not about my dad, or anything else. Go. It’s fine. Good luck.”

Zayn paused in the doorway, duffel slung over his shoulder, and he looked like a strong breeze might blow him away. “I really do think this is gonna work,” he said, quietly. “I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

“Okay. Just go.”

“Bye. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you around.”

He waited a few moments, clearly anticipating a goodbye in return, but after ten seconds of fraught silence, he grimaced and walked out, and closed the door—softly, softly.

*

A series of blog posts about an apparently haunted hotel and a tip from a friend of Niall’s take them to Coeur D’Alene. They get a room, place the hex bags, line the doors and windows with salt, and wait.

Well. Maybe a loose definition of waiting.

“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!” Louis growls as he leaves the bathroom.

“Stopped being funny after the second time,” Liam says. “A lot of fucking people have died in this hotel, Jesus Christ.”

“Any creepy twins? Lady in a bathtub?”

“ _Louis._ ”

“What?”

“I’m trying to work.”

“All work and no play makes Liam a dull boy.”

“Louis, I swear to god—”

“For your information, Payno, I, too, can use the internet.” He makes a jump and lands at the foot of Liam’s bed, and then almost bounces back off onto the floor. “Woah. Mattress is springy. I think I found our ghost, by the way.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. What, you think it’s just tumbleweeds up here?” He knocks on the side of his head. “I’ve been doing this way longer than you, dick.”

“Who is it?”

“Ah ah ah,” Louis scolds. “Apologize first.”

“Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. I think this is our girl.” He shows Liam the phone screen. “Lori Hayward. Hanged herself in one of the closets in 1997. Huge uptick in weird deaths since then.” He points to the timeline Liam’s been working on. “Bet you twenty bucks this is the origin. Suicides make nasty spirits, man.”

“Where’s she buried?”

Louis grins. “I can’t get over you being all gung-ho about grave robbing now. Tables, how they turn!”

“I’m not _gung-ho_ about it, I just get why it’s necessary.”

“Alright, whatever you want to tell yourself.”

“ _Where is she buried?_ ”

Louis sighs. “That’s the tricky part. As far as I can figure, she wasn’t.”

“As far as you can figure?”

“No record of burial, at least. Her mom lives nearby; looks like we’re gonna have to pay a visit.”

Liam frowns. “Hey, sorry about your daughter who killed herself, what did you do with her corpse?”

“Yeah, I know. Gotta suck it up, though. Can’t let her kill anybody else. Get your fed suit on, we got a job.”

*

Lori was cremated, as Louis had suspected, which leaves them to try and figure out what her spirit’s bound to if not her bones. Her mom, Linda, has preserved her teenage bedroom as some kind of shrine; they pay their respects, apologize for her loss, and leave quickly, with no real lead. Linda has no idea why her daughter killed herself: she was a _happy girl_ with a _bright future,_ and she hadn’t left a note or even acted odd in the weeks leading up to her suicide. She’d gone to prom, and the next day she had been hanging from the clothes rail in a hotel closet.

“Where do we go from here?” Liam asks, as they back out of the drive. “Mom seems to think she was totally well-adjusted.”

Louis nods toward the backseat. “Swiped her diary. Might find something in there. Yearbook, too, just in case.” He glances sideways. “Don’t look at me like that. We’ll return ‘em. Her mom’s not gonna miss ‘em, anyway, she doesn’t go in there. It’s basically a crypt.”

“Still,” Liam says, but lets it drop.

As it turns out, Lori went to the prom with someone named Jake Burton _,_ who had booked the hotel room where Lori died, and who had an uncle in the police force. Jake had been released after a couple of hours of questioning and his alibi checking out, according to the police report Liam’s reading snippets of aloud.

Louis snorts. “He went home with a different girl. Classy.”

“Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing worth hanging yourself over,” Liam says mildly.

“It isn’t,” Louis says, slowly and deliberately, and rolls his eyes slightly.

“You don’t think she killed herself?”

 _There we go._ Louis shakes his head. “I believe people would believe that. Jilted teenage girl kills herself in a fit of overdramatic self-pity? People eat that kind of shit up.” He’s angry on this girl’s behalf, already; it makes sense she would make a seriously malevolent ghost. If he’s right, which he’s pretty sure he is, this Jake kid deserves to die a miserable, painful, incredibly slow death.

“Couldn’t it happen, though?” Liam sounds doubtful, which is infuriating. A former fed should be able to put the pieces together on something like this. Granted, he’s pretty sure Liam didn’t work many domestic violence cases, but it’s still maddening, and reminds Louis briefly why he fucking _hates_ cops.

“It _could,_ ” he says, once he’s calmed slightly, and takes a left turn. “Doesn’t mean it’s likely. Do we know where this dude is?”

Liam shakes his head. “He’s not on the most recent census. Seems like he skipped town not too long after.”

Louis snorts. “Figures.”

“We don’t _know_ —”

“All the victims have been young and male,” he snaps. “You think that’s a coincidence? And it ends up the same anyway. We find whatever’s binding her to the hotel, burn it, and done. Police report say what she was wearing?”

“Uh.” Liam shuffles through the papers in his lap. “Purple dress. Satin. Bagged as evidence. Shoes. Probably disposed of not long after, since it’s a closed case.”

“Hm.” The Camaro rumbles into the hotel parking lot. “Well. It’s gotta be something.”

*

It does have to be something, but finding that something is a whole different ball game, especially once Lori shows up, prom dress and all, neck ringed with bruises that nearly match the indigo fabric, silent and impassive as she hurls object after object at them.

A shot of rock salt in the torso takes her out for a second, and Louis wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Kinda reminds you of _Carrie,_ doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess. Listen, we should redraw the salt lines—”

“Already did it. We’re _sure_ this is the room?”

“Positive.” Liam reloads his shotgun.

Louis glances around, panting slightly. “You’d think they’d stop renting it out.”

“You checked the whole closet?”

Lori flickers back into being near the window. “ _Yes,_ Liam. Hang on.” He takes the shot a little quickly and rocks back with the blast. “You look, I’ll cover you. What did we miss?”

She’s re-materializing quicker each time, he notes with dismay. He has a whole lot of rock salt, but not it’s not endless. Maybe it’s time for a different strategy.

“Hey,” Louis tries. “Hey, Lori, I’m not Jake, okay?”

She doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t throw anything at him, either. She just keeps staring, unblinking and expressionless.

He continues. “I’m not him. None of the other guys were him, either, okay? I get that you’re mad. He told everyone you killed yourself, right?”

No response.

“And everybody assumed you were just overreacting to him ditching you.”

He glances quickly over to Liam, rummaging in the closet still, and then back at Lori, who’s still staring. His heart aches for her, a little.

“Jake got away with it because he had friends in high places. Everybody believed him, and you got stuck here.”

Slowly, still not blinking, she nods, once. He takes a step forward, putting a hand up and holding the barrel of his shotgun in the other. There are more bruises than he saw at first, mottling her face and arms. _Boyfriend probably killed her ‘accidentally,_ ’ he thinks, bitterly. _He just meant to beat and choke her._

A deep, twisting pang of sympathy rocks him for a split second,  and then he has to duck, barely evading the phone she hurls at his head, and blasts her with rock salt.

She flickers away again. “ _Dammit,_ ” he grunts. “Li, you find anything?”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for _,_ ” Liam shouts. “It would be something she had on her, right?”

“A lock of hair, maybe? I don’t fucking know, Liam—”

“Did you see anything else on her? A headband or something?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t get that close a look before she started flinging shit.” He stares at the wall for a moment, racking his brain. He’s missed something—he _knows_ he’s missed something.

Before he can find it, though, he feels a sudden harsh, tight pull around his neck, and he’s lifted off the floor choking and flailing. He scrabbles at the material around his neck—a sheet from the bed, he realizes—and chokes as he begins to swing around.

She’s hanging him from the fucking ceiling fan.

“Liam!” he tries to call, but a quiet rasp is all that comes out.

Liam notices the movement, though, and turns around, gaping. “Hang on,” he says urgently, “just a second, I’ll get you down from there—”

As he takes a step forward, the closet door slams shut, and the dresser shoots across the room to block it.

Louis can hear Liam yelling and hitting the door. His vision’s going black at the edges, and his hands and feet are numb. He tries to tell Liam to keep looking, that it’ll take a while for him to die like this, that he needs to prioritize _ganking the fucking ghost._

Louis really, really doesn’t want to die like this, but he might, and he tries to make peace with that in the minutes he probably has left. He manages to get the fingers of his left hand between his throat and the noose, which relieves some of the pressure. Maybe he could untie it—

Lori appears in front of him once again, and twists her hand in mid-air. If Louis had a voice, he’d scream at the way the fabric tightens, crushing his fingers and windpipe at once. Black spots dance in front of his eyes, and he fights to keep them open, on the ghost in front of him, who’s still got her hand raised, ringed at the wrist by a flower of some kind.

 _Her corsage,_ Louis realizes. It hadn’t been on the police report, but her ghost is wearing it, so she died with it on. He tries, again, to shout to Liam, but he can’t make a sound, and the effort takes him closer to unconsciousness, and, to his horror, he finds himself starting to pray.

 _Our Father who art in Heaven; hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom_ —

“Her corsage,” says a voice from somewhere nearby. A familiar voice. “Her corsage,” it repeats, louder, and then a third time, _screaming,_ and the sound itself isn’t terrible, but it resonates with a kind of fearsome power, and Louis feels terror and elation rip through him simultaneously as he recognizes it.

Before he can process that, Lori smiles, and begins to advance again. _She’s going in for the kill,_ he realizes, looking at the blur of her silhouette as it takes a step forward. _This is how I’m going to die._ Another step. Another.

She freezes.

There’s an ear-shattering scream, and Louis can feel the heat and sense the violent orange light that consumes her from toe to head until there’s nothing left, not even ash. He closes his eyes.

When he opens them, Liam’s above him. There are rapid, hard pushes to his chest; it hurts, and he wishes it would stop, but he can’t speak. Liam’s face comes closer, then, and closer, closer than it’s ever been before, and he’s got his mouth open like he’s going to kiss Louis—why would he kiss him? Liam’s straight, and besides that, he’s not at all Louis’ type, and Louis doesn’t want to kiss him. He tries to communicate this, and makes a tiny, choked sound.

The way Liam’s eyes widen into dinner plates is funny, and Louis enjoys the sight for the half second before he begins coughing with what feels like his whole body, harder than he ever has before, and gasping in between coughs. It fucking _hurts_ —everything hurts, and he feels tears welling up, and then he slips back into the soft black behind his eyelids.

*

“What the hell happened back there?” Liam hands him a bag of ice wrapped in a hand towel, and he holds it against his neck, wincing. “You might actually have to go to the hospital for that, by the way.”

“It’s just bruised,” Louis rasps. “I’ll be fine.”

“We should get you a brace, at the very least.”

Talking takes a lot of effort, and it hurts twice as much. Louis glowers at Liam, and since he can’t nod, makes a thumbs-up he hopes looks sarcastic.

The ice is starting to help. The hand holding it to his neck is numb, and drops of freezing water are dripping onto his thigh. He shivers.

“So what happened?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You tell me,” he manages, and gestures to his neck, and then to his head, as if to say _I was unconscious, you dolt._

“Right, sorry. Um, I was stuck in the closet, right, and I heard this voice shout that it was her corsage, and the ribbon, and where to look, and I found it where it said. I didn’t recognize the voice. It had a British accent, if that helps.

Louis hisses on an inhale. So that hadn’t been a near-death auditory hallucination.

“Lou?”

He waves a hand to indicate he’s okay, and re-positions the ice. His head is beginning to pound again. He really, really wants a drink, but he’s not too confident in his ability to swallow hard liquor at the moment. _Fuck._

“You look like you know who it was.”

“ _What_ it was,” Louis wheezes. It’s no use keeping this from Liam; this is the second time that damn demon’s swooped in to save their asses. He had a suspicion about the vampires, but now he knows, and Liam should, too. Louis doesn’t do secrets about this kind of shit. That gets people killed.

“What was it?”

Louis concentrates on the sharp, bitter cold. “Demon,” he says. “Same one.”

“You mean the same one from Palo Alto, and that bar in Spokane?”

 _And that club in San Francisco,_ Louis’ brain chirps. Liam doesn’t need to know that, probably. “Yeah,” he says.

“Shit.” Liam looks winded. “What the fuck?”

Louis laughs; it’s agonizing, and it immediately turns into a whimper.

“Lou, you need to go to the hospital—”

“I’m fine,” he grits out, trying to regulate his breathing. He _is_ fine; he’s just a little banged up and probably won’t be able to talk for a couple of days. “Aspirin,” he says. _Fuck it._ He wants a drink, too. “Whisky.”

Liam’s brow furrows. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Louis’ eye-roll must be answer enough, because he sighs and disappears for a moment, and when he comes back, he’s got the aspirin and a bottle of Jack although he still looks worried and disapproving.

There’s a sudden flash of his mother wearing a nearly-identical expression, looking down at him after he’d broken his leg skateboarding, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight and wills it away.

The aspirin gets washed down with the whisky, and Liam takes away the mostly-melted ice, and he slips away again.

 _If you would just_ think _before you did things, boo, you wouldn’t get hurt so often. Okay? Please promise me you’ll be more careful._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your lovely & thoughtful comments--it's so nice to hear people are enjoying this fic. I'm really enjoying writing it. 
> 
> Huge thanks to Kate for editorial guidance on this chapter. You're an angel. <3
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you think.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: a decent amount of blood/injury talk, alcohol, references to parents being shitty. I think that's it. Apologies if I missed something.

They linger a few more days in Coeur d’Alene. After three, Louis folds and lets Liam drag him to a chiropractor and gets himself a stiff, bulky, unwieldy, and ugly-as-sin neck brace. He’s also not supposed to drive for at least two weeks, but since “Doctor Westin” is not, in fact, a real doctor, he’s not going to be putting up with it for longer than a week, maximum.

They should get back to Niall’s, though. There’s no reason for them to be hanging around here after the newly un-haunted room is cleaned up, and it makes Louis itch that Harry had found them there, even though he apparently hadn’t been able to cross the salt lines and there’s been no sign of him since.

Liam thinks they should look for him, which is just balls-out stupid, and Louis tells him so.

“He vanished before I could ask him anything,” Liam argues. “Aren’t you curious about how and why he found us? How he knew where that ribbon would be? C’mon, Lou.”

“I’m curious,” Louis grumbles, adjusting the pillows behind him for the umpteenth time today. He still can’t get a good angle on the TV. “But I can guarantee you it’s nothing good, and whatever he’d say ain’t anything worth listening to. And to your other question, demons can talk to ghosts. Something about planes or realms or whatever.”

“Don’t you think we should know, though?”

“I do. He’s just not going to tell us, so why waste our time trying to ask him?

Liam huffs. “Lou, he saved our asses. I’d at least like to get to say thank you.”

“Kill a butterfly or something, Liam,” Louis snaps. “That’s a nice demonic thank you note.” Liam’s silent. “What?”

“You’re just...I don’t know, man. He seemed like he was trying to help. He _did_ help, actually. I don’t get why you’re so hostile.”

“I am not _hostile._ ”

“Yeah, you kinda are.”

Louis turns the volume up. “I don’t like demons.”

“I know that. I’m just saying this one hasn’t actually done anything, you know?” Liam’s just talking louder, over _General Hospital._ He’s distracting Louis from a very heartfelt moment. They’re about to pull the plug on this coma patient.

Another notch up, and the sobbing from the TV is approaching ear-splitting levels. Liam seems to get the message after a minute, and he sighs, placing both feet heavily on the floor and standing to begin packing.

After a few minutes, during which the patient miraculously wakes up after two years on life support and starts sucking on her husband’s face, Louis lowers the sound to a level where he can think. He _does_ want to ask Harry what he’s doing; he wants to desperately, because he can’t fucking figure it out. It’s crossed his mind more than once that Harry might be working for the demon they’re tracking, but surely he would’ve killed Louis or delivered him to it by now; he’s had plenty of opportunity.

Frustratingly, the only semi-coherent explanation Louis can come up with is what Harry told him, which can’t be true. Demons lie. Harry’s got to be angling for something more than help hiding from his boss. What could he even have done that would make him need to, anyway?

“Louis. Lou. _Louis!_ ”

Louis snaps out of his trance and winces as the brace cuts into the tender skin under his jaw. “Huh?”

“Car’s loaded. You ready to go?”

“In a minute,” Louis says, and coughs. “You go ahead.”

Liam nods, hoisting his backpack over one shoulder, and leaves.

Louis flips the TV off, and, after a few moments of hesitation, digs the cell phone out of his pocket. He flips it open and waits for it to power on. There are only three contacts, and he scrolls down to the last one, thumb hovering over the call button. _He might not even answer,_ he reasons. _Maybe he’s gotten a new number. He stopped calling months ago. He might not even be alive, for all you know, running off with a demon and all._

He snaps the phone shut before he can press the button, and shoves it back into the pocket of his jeans. Gingerly, he stands up and heads for the door.

*

“Don’t you look a fuckin’ fright,” Niall says, eyebrows arching towards his hairline. “What in god’s name happened to you?”

“Oh, you know.” Louis can’t really shrug, but he gives it his best shot. “Breath play gone wrong. Some guys just don’t know when to quit.” He can practically _hear_ Liam blush; sure enough, he’s gone scarlet and wide-eyed.

Niall cackles. “We’ve talked about this, Lou. Safe, sane, and consensual.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waves a hand. “That ghost I told you about decided to hang me from a ceiling fan.”

“Kinky.”

“Mhm. Liam here saved me just in time, though. _My hero,_ ” he simpers, and winks.

“Nice one, Payne.” Niall claps him on the shoulder.

“Actually— ”

“Liam,” Louis cuts him off. “Would you be a doll and go get the bags from the trunk? Neil and I are both a little feeble at the moment.”

“Oi,” Niall grouses. “Watch who you’re callin’ feeble.” He swings his cane in Louis’ direction. “‘Less you want your legs knocked out from under you.”

Louis raises his hands and giggles. “Woah there. You ever thought about putting a sword in that thing?”

“Aye, but swords are fuckin’ useless. This one’s got iron in the center. And salt.”

“Smart,” Louis says, impressed.

“That’s me,” Niall says, lowering his voice slightly. “Mind tellin’ me what that was about?”

Louis sighs. “I’ve got a bit of a situation.”

“That you don’t want Liam to know about?”

“Nah, not exactly, just...wanted to talk to you about it, privately.”

Niall nods. Louis appreciates, once again, Niall’s easy acceptance. He’ll panic in small spaces or about certain varieties of insect, but with real, concrete problems, he’s remarkably unflappable. “Alright. Hit me.”

“We’ve got a demon following us. Or, rather, I think it’s mostly following me.”

Niall raises his eyebrows. “Shit.”

“Shit indeed. You got booze?”

Niall sighs softly, but gets up and takes two glasses from the cabinet.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Louis says, glad for the weight of the tumbler in his hand. He takes a sip of scotch. “Anyway.”

“You were saying?”

“Right, right. So maybe a month ago, we worked this job in Palo Alto, right?”

“Liam mentioned, yeah. What, did something happen?”

“Sort of.” It’s a trick to drink without spilling when he can’t really move his head, but he manages. “Crossroads demon. I summoned it, convinced it to call off its hounds.”

“How? You want a straw for that, by the way?” Niall snickers.

Louis flips him off. “Exorcised it ‘til it gave in. He really didn’t want to go downstairs, apparently.”

“He?”

Louis sighs. “Harry. That’s his name.”

“Huh.” Niall makes a thoughtful face.

Louis can feel his cheeks heating slightly. He’ll chalk it up to the effort of drinking wearing the brace. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” There’s a hint of laughter to Niall’s tone, though, and something else a little more worrying.

“No, that was something.”

“It’s _nothing,_ Lou,” Niall insists. “Go on.”

He frowns, but decides not to push it yet. They’ll get there. “I went out a couple nights later, in San Francisco, and I ran into him.”

Niall lets out a low whistle. “Shit. He try something?”

It’s a fight not to squirm. “No, just cockblocked me.”

Niall bursts into laughter. “You’re having me on.”

“I’m not,” Louis grumbles. “He fuckin’ cockblocked me.”

“Did you fuck him?” Niall sounds like he’s genuinely wondering.

“ _No,”_ Louis half-shouts.

“I was just askin’. It’s a reasonable question.”

It absolutely is not. “I wouldn’t.”

“I know that, Lou. I was just teasin’.”

“Right.” His glass is empty. He reaches for a refill. “So, he cockblocked me.”

“Yes. Twat.”

“Exactly. And then on that vampire hunt I told you about, when something invisible threw ‘em against the wall?”

“You think that was him?”

“Probably,” Louis murmurs. “Can’t see what else it would be.”

“Shit.”

The burn of the alcohol is getting pleasant, sweet. “He found me again, hustling pool outside Spokane after that lead you gave us that didn’t turn anything up.”

“He cockblock you again?”

“Nah.” Louis swallows. His throat feels numb. “He fucked up my game, made me sink every single ball in one shot. I thought this dude was going to crush my head like a goddamn watermelon.”

“I take it he didn’t?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “No. Goddamn demon slammed _him_ up against a wall, too.”

“He’s got a thing for that, seems like.”

“Apparently,” Louis says, hoping his tone says _don’t fucking go there._

Niall doesn’t, bless him. “So, what, he just wanted to defend your honor?”

“Nah. He offered me a deal.”

“For your soul?” Niall snaps, suddenly serious. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Of fucking course I didn’t, Ni, I’m not stupid,” he snaps right back.

“What’d he want, then?”

Louis chews on the inside of his cheek. “Protection,” he says slowly. “He wanted us to hide him. Apparently they’re unhappy with him downstairs, I don’t know.”

Niall’s silent for a while. “That’s doable,” he says, slowly, staring off into space with his brow furrowed.

“Huh?” That’s not the response Louis was expecting. Niall’s supposed to agree with him.

Niall looks back at him, face still contemplative. “That’s doable, I said. If he’ll let you, you can bind him to his meatsuit, keep ‘im powerless. I can show you how to write a password sort of thing into your wards. ‘S pretty simple, actually.”

Louis gapes like a fish. “Are you suggesting I take the deal? _”_

Niall shrugs. “Depends what he’s offering in return, dunnit?”

“He’s a _demon—_ ”

“Who’s offering to basically put himself at your mercy,” Niall says. “It’s different, Lou. I know what you’re thinking. What _is_ he offering, then?”

Louis swallows. “Anything I want, basically.”

“So let’s say you wanted another demon dead. He could swing that?”

“Maybe.” Louis twists his mouth. “I asked if he could track other demons.”

“And?”

“I’m not considering it, Niall,” he says flatly.

“But you asked.”

“Yes, I asked.”

“Which means part of you _was._ ”

“I was drunk.”

“So?”

“So I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Maybe not.” Niall studies him carefully. “But you still asked. What’d he say?”

“It doesn’t matter _,_ ” Louis snaps.

“Humor me.” Niall rolls his eyes.

“Bastard,” Louis mumbles under his breath, and then clears his throat. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“ _Yes,_ he can track other demons.”

“How?”

“He says there’s signs humans can’t sense.”

Niall takes a sip of his drink, still almost full. “You think he’s lyin’?”

Louis huffs. “He’s a demon, Niall.”

“Yeah.”

“What? What’s that look.”

“Nothing.” Niall shrugs. “Listen, I’ve been trying to give you your space, but…”

“But what?”

The response is hesitant. “You’ve got to talk to someone about this. ‘s not healthy.”

“Talk about what? _”_

Quietly, Niall says, “You know what.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Not you too _—”_

“See, this is what I’m talkin’ about. You think everyone’s ganging up on you. Y’haven’t considered that maybe we have a point?”

“We?”

Niall sighs. “Not like that, don’t start. There’s no fuckin’ conspiracy, Louis.”

“What, so you and Zayn never talked about me behind my back?”

“Not like that, Louis, Christ _—”_

“That’s some great pillow talk,” Louis spits. He can feel himself starting to lose control of his words and instinctively jabbing at tender spots. He’s brought up the way Zayn would sneak off into Niall’s bedroom, sometimes, when they stayed here, but never with the intent to throw it in Niall’s face. It’s a shitty move, he knows, even as he’s making it.

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Lou.” Louis’ rarely heard Niall this serious, and it rattles him, but to know he’s hit a nerve also spurs him on, and he can’t stop himself from continuing.

“What are you gonna do, hit me? You two weren’t exactly subtle about it. Did he tell you he was dating that demon, or did you find out from me?”

Niall shoves the table away, a hideous, violent scraping noise accompanying the movement. Louis closes his eyes, briefly.

When he opens them, Niall’s squinting at him, an unhappy twist to his mouth. “You know,” he starts, voice low and hurt, “your da really did a fuckin’ number on you, didn’t he?”

 _Listen,_ Zayn said. _I know your dad was a bastard._

 _You don’t know shit,_ Louis had yelled.

“So you and Zayn discussed my daddy issues too, huh?” Louis stands up too quickly. The brace cuts into his neck, and he swallows the pained noise that threatens to escape. “Great. Perfect. Obviously you two know what’s best for me, since I’m clearly fucking incapable.” With some effort, he puts his flannel back on and digs in his pocket for the extra keys to the Camaro.

“Where are you going?” Niall sighs, looking at him with something like resignation. It makes him itch.

“Out,” Louis snaps, and turns on his heel, walking at a pace that hurts his neck but that he knows Niall can’t keep up with, and he feels a slight twinge of guilt, but it’s soothed by the way the engine rumbles when he turns the key in the ignition.

The car makes it four miles—half the distance to the nearest bar, since Niall insists on living in the middle of fucking nowhere—and then stalls.

 _“Dammit!”_ He slaps the steering wheel with an open palm. The fucking battery is dead, and he’s _sure_ it’s because Liam’s been driving and leaving the _goddamn A/C on_ when the engine’s off, like Louis’ bitched at him a million and a half times for doing.

The sudden stillness and quiet make his ears perk up, skin prickling at the noises of crickets and frogs and everything else thrumming with life around him. He hears the high whine of a mosquito near his ear, and slaps it away, reaching down to crank the windows up, which is a trick with his head mostly immobile. Cursing, he unbuckles the brace and flings it into the passenger seat, and then leans his forehead against the steering wheel and takes deep breaths, focusing on the coolness of the slightly muggy air on his sweating neck.

Alright. He has a couple of options, here. The humiliating, but obvious one is to call Liam or Niall and have one of them come out here to jumpstart him. He could also wait for someone to drive by and help him out, which would be better for his pride but might take hours—again, Niall lives in the middle of fucking _nowhere._

Sighing, he digs his cell phone out of the glove compartment and waits for it to power on.

Zero bars.

“Fuck me,” he groans, holding it up and waving it around like that might help. It doesn’t.

 _Well,_ he thinks, _at least that’s that decision made._ He glances over at the brace. He should really put it back on; he can feel the way the tendons in his neck are twitching, how every shift of his head sends a sharp ache through his throat. _Might as well,_ he decides. No one’s gonna see him.

The car gets a little cramped after a few minutes of waiting and staring at the dark, empty road, so he climbs out and listens to the crunch of gravel under his feet as he walks around to the trunk, and, after a minute of debate, hoists himself up and onto the roof. It takes some maneuvering, but he gets himself settled with his arms tucked behind his head, looking up. The sky’s clear tonight. He’d grown up right outside the city, where, if you were lucky, you could see the Big Dipper or Orion, but not much else.

Here, you can see everything. The moon is waxing, almost-full and blinding, and around it, stars soften the thick black sweep of sky. He picks out the Pleiades, which he always used to mistake for the Little Dipper when he was younger, and murmurs their names. _Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, Alycone. Atlas and Pleione._ The Seven Sisters and their parents. Mars winks slightly red. Venus is bright and obvious.

He locates the North Star out of instinct. His father had insisted that he learn to navigate with every tool at his disposal, in case he found himself stranded. _Freezing to death ‘cause you can’t figure out which way’s North is a damn stupid way to die._ He’s facing due southwest, now. Absently, he rubs his thumb over the compass on his forearm.

“Car trouble?”

He freezes, every hair on his body standing on end. His instincts are screaming for him to spring up, but he doesn’t trust his coordination—it was enough of a trick to get himself up here.

“You could say that,” he calls back, proud of the way he keeps the tremor out of his voice.

“Need a hand?”

Louis hears the crunch of the gravel under long, purposeful strides, and he sits up on his elbows, swinging his legs around off the side of the car before slipping carefully down and onto the firm ground.

“What’re you gonna do, jumpstart her with your demon powers?”

“Something like that.” There’s a slight strain to Harry’s voice.

Louis’ fingers twitch for his gun. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I just want to talk.” He’s dressed plainly—white t shirt, dark jeans, brown boots. He keeps walking, but he’s favoring one leg. Louis squints, and his vision adjusts enough to see a few dark spots spreading on his side, a gash on his cheekbone.

“What happened to you?” he says stupidly.

Harry stops, and grimaces. “Ran into a colleague,” he says, barely loud enough for Louis to hear him.

Louis snorts. “Okay.”

“I’m not lying.” Harry’s face looks pinched, like he’s on the verge of crying. _A demon. Crying._ Louis can’t wrap his head around that concept. It’s so incredibly alien; he feels like the world has been tilted on its axis, all the constellations rearranged, watching this absurd wisp of a demon who contradicts practically everything he knows about the species, and consequently his understanding of the order of the world, and feeling himself compelled to reach out for him, to comfort and care for.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

Louis keeps his hands stubbornly by his sides, and after a moment, Harry’s face smoothes out, and he looks up, eyes slightly shiny.

“I’m not lying,” he repeats, a little steadier. “I wish I could convince you of that.”

Louis tries to tilt his head, but he can’t. Harry’s eyes track the attempted movement. “Why?” he asks.

“Because I’m not lying, or trying to trick you. I’ve been trying to prove it to you.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing, huh?”

“Yes _,_ ” Harry insists. Louis might be imagining the minute crack in his voice. “What do I have to do to get you to believe me?”

“Why do you care? And maybe you could start with not stalking me. Not the greatest way to win someone’s trust, buddy.”

Harry stares at him. “You’d rather I left you alone, then?” he says, slowly, and takes a step closer. The long, ringed fingers of one hand brush close to the brace. Louis wants to take it off; it makes him look vulnerable. “Should I not have stepped in?”

This close, Louis can faintly pick up his scent amongst the smell of wet earth and heat. It’s not sulfur, like he might expect. It’s actually vaguely floral. Sweet. Unconsciously, he finds himself sucking in deeper breaths, trying to get more.

Once he realizes he’s doing it, he rocks back, swallowing and meeting Harry’s eerily intense stare, disarming and magnetic even in a light, human green. “Do you want me to say thank you?” Louis asks.

“It would be nice.” The shadow of a dimple appears in Harry’s left cheek, the moon making the skin glow soft white.

Louis can feel his face scrunching further, the traitorous thump of his heart ticking up. “Then thanks, I guess. Would’ve sucked to get ganked by a 17-year-old girl ghost.”

Harry frowns. “Lori was really angry,” he says, softly. “She’d been stuck there a long time.”

Suddenly, Louis remembers that she would’ve had to go somewhere, after. “Is she…” He clears his throat. “I mean, did she...do you know if she’s like...”

Harry shakes his head. “Not my area. Maybe.”

“Does...does everyone?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“What happens to the others?”

“No idea.”

“Oh.”

They’re both quiet, the space between them seeming to hum in key with the chirp of the crickets.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” Harry says, after a while. “I keep trying to talk to you, and we go in circles. You don’t believe anything I tell you.”

Louis frowns. “Why do you care?”

“Because I’m telling the truth, and you don’t believe me.”

“Demons aren’t exactly known for their trustworthiness.”

Harry sighs. “Demons used to be human.” He’s quiet.

“ _Used_ _to_ being operative.”

A shrug. “Humans are all different.”

“Yeah, but humans aren’t evil.”

Harry’s eyes flash red for a split-second; Louis might have imagined it. “What about Lori’s boyfriend? What about all of the other despicable things you do to each other up here? I watch the news, you know.”

“Okay. Fair point,” Louis concedes. “Do you remember being human, then?” He can’t keep the curiosity out of his tone.

Harry frowns. His eyes are back to green. “More than some,” he says.

Louis can’t suppress his snort. “What an answer.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Not an answer.”

“I told you why.”

“What, your boss being mad at you?”

“Yeah.”

“Find another hunter, dude. I’m not buying what you’re selling.”

“Easier said than done.”

“You could, though.”

“Theoretically, but finding a hunter who basically can’t be found is tricky. And I don’t want another hunter.”

“Why?”

“I want you.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Harry huffs and roughly runs a hand through his hair. “Cause I _do_. And I’m getting kind of desperate.” The sudden thickness of his voice is startling. “She’s closing in on me.”

“Is that what happened?” Louis gestures to the dark red stain on Harry’s shirt.

A wry grimace. “One of her hounds. I wouldn’t be here if she’d found me herself.”

“What would happen?”

Harry shrugs, crossing his arms tight over his chest and where he’s bleeding. “She’d torture me until she got bored, and then kill me. She’s got quite a long attention span, though.” His voice has gone flat, like he’s talking about the weather.

“What did you _do?_ ”

Harry sighs. “Lots of things. I’ve never been a model employee, but, I, er, got a little too...cocky, I suppose, would be the word for it.”

“I need details, bud.”

Harry swallows, and looks at his feet. He seems to choose his next words very carefully, even slower and more precise in his speech. “I swapped my contracts. Um, I won’t deal with children, but not...not everyone is like that. So I’d make deals with the worst people I could find, and then I’d trade my coworkers for the ones they had with kids, and I’d break them. Kept it hidden for a while, but then I started taking on too many, and she found out. So.”

Louis is reeling, just a little. “So you’re telling me you’re in trouble because you _saved too many kids from going to Hell,_ ” he says. _It’s a lie,_ his brain screeches.

“I can prove it,” Harry pleads. “I mean, sort of. I have a list, you can check the names. Maggie Ormond was the first one. She was ten, her mum was dying of lung cancer. Stage three. She made a miraculous recovery, it was in the papers. Maggie’s twenty-five now, you can look her up. Um, Mario Peralta was one of the recent ones. I got his contract just in time, he passed the ten-year mark a few months ago. His family were homeless, he’s graduating valedictorian later this year. Um, let’s see, who else…”

Louis cuts him off. “Why would you do that?”

“They’re kids,” Harry says, quietly. “Desperate kids.”

“Isn’t everyone who sells their soul desperate, though?”

Harry shakes his head. “Some are just greedy.”

“So _they_ deserve to go to Hell.”

“No,” Harry says, “but someone has to.” His voice is heartbreakingly heavy, and somehow fragile. Slowly, Harry lowers his pale arms from where he’s been clutching his middle. One forearm is smeared with blood, turned a dark, bluish-red by the light. It makes Louis squirm.

“Can’t you heal yourself?” he asks. His fingers twitch with the impulse to _hold_ and _clean_ and _fix._

“No.” Pain is starting to eke further into Harry’s voice the longer they talk. “I’ll heal, eventually, but I can’t just snap my fingers and make it go away.”

Louis frowns. “I thought crossroads demons were, like, all-powerful?”

Harry chuckles unpleasantly. “In some ways. Not this one, unfortunately, unless it’s part of a deal. Or, like, I could do spells, theoretically, but I’m rubbish at witchcraft.”

 _I’ll bet,_ Louis thinks. “That looks painful,” he says, gesturing towards Harry’s side.

Harry grimaces. “It is.”

“You gonna patch yourself up at all?”

The grimace deepens. “I’m really squeamish about blood,” Harry says, like a confession.

Louis does, actually, burst out laughing. “Some fuckin’ undying evil creature of the underworld you are.”

The corners of Harry’s mouth turn back up, his dimples deepening. “Not a very good one, I’m afraid. I’m a big of a laughingstock, actually. They’re all, oh, there goes Harry, the biggest pansy in all of Hell.”

“Tragic. My heart truly bleeds for you. They steal your lunch money, too?”

“Sometimes.” Harry laughs, and then gasps in pain, doubling over slightly.

“Woah there, Bambi.” Louis needs to do something about the sympathy coursing through him; it’s clouding his thoughts. “This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life, which is saying a lot, but why don’t you let me stitch you up?”

“Why would you do that?”

“Don’t want your host to die, do I?’

Harry frowns. “I told you, he’s not here.”

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical. And I’m doing you a favor, so shut up.”

“You don’t have to,” Harry grits out. He’s clutching his side, and Louis can see where blood’s seeping out between his fingers. “I’ll be fine.”

Louis waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. I’m a sucker for a great sob story, what can I say? Plus I don’t buy that you’re alone in there, sorry. Not totally out of the goodness of my heart, though. I’m proposing a deal.”

Harry looks back up at him, expression quizzical. “What kind of deal?”

Louis crosses his arms. “I patch your meatsuit up, you jump start my car. You can do that, right? If it’s a deal?”

The stare Harry gives him is momentarily inscrutable, and then he says, “Yes, I can do that. Deal.”

Licking his lips, Louis suddenly realizes his mouth has gone Arizona-dry, and he works furiously to work up some saliva, and then finds himself staring at Harry’s lips. Harry’s looking at him with slightly narrowed, glinting eyes and one dimple popped. Louis coughs. “Still gotta kiss to seal it, right?”

Harry’s smirk widens. “I’m afraid Hell’s bylaws haven’t changed in a few centuries.”

“They _have_ changed, though?”

“The Reformation was wild, I’m told.” Harry scrunches his nose. “Come on and do it, this really hurts.”

Louis sighs. “Fine, you big baby.” He takes a step forward and begins to lean in, then he jerks back, a few inches from Harry’s face. “Wait! Can I add one more term?” His heart’s racing, and he wills it to calm down.

“Hm?”

“Can you make it so I don’t have to wear this fucking thing?” Louis knocks on the side of the brace.

“Are you sure? It’s a good look,” Harry says dryly. “Really brings out your eyes. But I suppose.”

Without another word, Louis tugs the collar of Harry’s shirt and kisses him. His mouth is closed so tight that his teeth are probably bruising his own lips, and he has to hold it like that to keep his tongue from trying to taste the inside of Harry’s mouth, maybe sucking on his shiny, candy-colored bottom lip and biting it to see what kind of sound he makes. If he moves, even just tilts his head to ease some of the pressure, he knows he’ll do something like that: something stupid, something reckless. He’ll lose control. He can’t do that.

It takes so much focus not to move that he forgets that he meant to pull away the millisecond he could; he nearly stumbles forward when, all of a sudden, Harry’s not pushing back anymore and all his mouth is meeting is empty, humid air. He catches himself before he falls, though, and takes two long, wrenching steps backward, away from Harry and away from his own crazed impulse to do it again. His mouth is throbbing.

 _What the fuck did you just do?_ He pushes the screeching in his brain aside; he’ll deal with it later. Better yet, he’ll forget about it. Practice has taught him that with enough distance, he’ll stop hungering for things he can’t have and shouldn’t want.

“Can I take this off?” he blurts, knocking on the brace again. _Stop thinking about it._

“Go for it.”

Louis turns his head as far as he can to each side, rolls his shoulders and tips it back, and breathes out slowly. “Damn,” he says, under his breath. His neck feels _great,_ better than it did prior to his strangulation, actually. The knots that were there before seem to be gone. “Thanks, man,” he says.

“Anytime.” Harry’s voice is strained. Louis looks over and startles at just how much blood is soaked into the white fabric; it stretches from just below the sleeve to the hem on one whole side.

“Okay,” Louis says. “Gonna need to get on that. Can you do the car, still?”

“Already did,” Harry grunts.

 _Oh._ “Well. Get in, then. If you bleed on my seats, I _will_ kill you.”

“You can’t,” Harry reminds him, climbing in. “You don’t know how.”

“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.” Louis settles down in the driver’s seat and turns the ignition. The radio blares to life, and Louis starts a little and goes to turn it down a notch.

“I love this song,” Harry says, sounding pleasantly surprised.

Shifting into gear, Louis eyes him in the rearview mirror; Harry’s being very courteous, keeping his blood-soaked side off the leather. “Really?”

“Really.” Harry’s eyes flutter closed, and he hums along. “Do I not seem like I would?”

Louis shrugs, reveling in how he _can_ again. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on shrugging for communication until he couldn’t. “I haven’t actually spent a lot of time contemplating demonic music preferences, I’m sorry.”

“We’re not all the same,” Harry grouses. “Some of us have taste.”

“I would’ve pegged you as more of a Beatles guy.”

“I love the Beatles,” Harry says, wistfully. “Reminds me of home.”

“England?”

“Home,” Harry repeats, simply, and goes back to humming, sometimes singing along quietly. “ _And all the roads we have to walk are winding…”_ Involuntarily, Louis finds himself doing the same—he sings along all the time, he’s just never done it with a (bleeding, awkward, strange, funny, weird) demon in the backseat. _He’s stuck in the Devil’s trap,_ he figures. _No real harm in letting loose for just a second._

*

“Please don’t freak out,” Louis starts.

Niall raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t get up from his armchair. “Well,” he says, calmly,  “this can’t be good.”

“It’s just a one-time thing—”

“Out with it.”

Louis sighs. “So there’s kind of a demon in my backseat.”

Niall blinks. “Oh.”

“Oh? That’s it?”

He tips his bottle slightly towards Louis. “Well, I’m sure you have an explanation.” Niall gives people the benefit of the doubt. It’s one of Louis’ favorite things about him, and also one of the things that drives him absolutely nuts.

Louis rubs the back of his neck, a little hot under his palm. “Um. Well. See, the car stalled, and uh, he sort of showed up.”

“This the one you were telling me about before?” Niall checks.

“Yeah.”

Niall tilts his head. “Why’s he here?”

“Well, you see, the car stalled, because Liam’s been driving while I haven’t been able to—”

Niall sits up suddenly and snaps his fingers. “Your neck!” he says, loudly, pointing. “That’s what’s different!”

“Yeah. He, uh, fixed that.”

“Huh.” Niall sits back and nods, like _go on._

“Anyway, he’s um, injured—I mean his host, you know—and I needed a jump start, so we made a deal, sort of.”

“What does _sort of_ mean?”

“Well. We made a deal, but it isn’t a big deal. I mean, like, it’s not a big thing. But not a big deal, either, like, in terms of like...transactions.”

Niall shakes his head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Listen—”

“Mate, I’m not going to lecture you. I’m just surprised you’ve had a change of heart so quickly.”

“I haven’t had a change of heart,” Louis snaps. “It just made sense.”

“Sure,” Niall says, genially.

“I’m just gonna stitch him up and then tell him to fuck off.”

“Well that’s rude. I’d at least like to meet him.”

“You want to meet a demon _?_ ”

Niall shrugs. “Got to thank him for keeping your sorry arse alive. Besides, he sounds like a laugh.”

Christ _._ “Am I living in some kind of bizarro-world? Have we crossed into an alternate dimension? Are _you_ possessed?” Niall still refuses to get an anti-possession tattoo, which is royally stupid, but Louis will admit he’s good enough with spells that there’s really no way a demon could get in here without his say-so; Louis always loosens up a bit, at Niall’s. It’s one of the only places—maybe _the_ only place—he feels really and truly safe.

Niall laughs. “You tell me. You have a demon in your car. In your car, which is on my property.”

Louis crosses his arms. “Where else am I supposed to keep him? There’s Devil’s traps on the floor and ceiling, he’s not going anywhere.”

“You’re not worried he’s going to fuck with it?”

“He’d better not,” Louis mutters. “Little worried about him bleeding out all over the interior, though. I’m gonna grab supplies and head back out there.”

“Wait,” Niall calls. “Why don’t you bring him in?”

 _What?_ “What?”

“Bring him inside,” Niall says. “Here, hang on—” He reaches for a pen and paper and scribbles something before handing it to Louis. It’s a symbol he doesn’t recognize. “I’ve been tinkering with the wards. Draw this on him, he’ll be able to come in.”

Louis stares at him. “Since when?”

Niall shrugs. “Since we talked about it.”

Louis lets out a low chuckle. “Jesus Christ.”

“Gotta keep busy somehow.”

“You sure?”

“I’m not exactly a demon _fan,_ ” Niall says, just a hint of bitterness creeping in, “but I’d like to ask him a few questions. And see him for myself, mind. I’m not entirely convinced you’ve not gone off the deep end.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Niall shoos him. “Off with ye.”

*

“New plan,” says Louis, when he opens the door. “Niall wants to talk to you. C’mon, get out.” He keeps his voice firm and curt, businesslike. This is just a job—a weird job, but a job nonetheless—and that’s how he’s going to think of it, since apparently ignoring the situation isn’t working.

“I can’t,” Harry grunts, glancing up at the Devil’s trap. “Little bit stuck.”

“Ugh,” Louis moans. “Alright, alright.” In theory, he could drag Harry out, but he’s not too keen on the idea of more physical contact than is absolutely necessary, and Harry is quite a bit bigger than him. He pulls his pocket knife out and digs through the outer circle of the trap on the ceiling of the car, and then, swearing, ducks under the passenger’s seat, yanks up the carpet, and does the same for the one on the floor. He makes a mental note to fix them the _second_ he has a moment—come to think of it, he should send Liam to do it as penance for wearing down the battery. This is at least partially his fault, after all.

With visible effort, Harry clambers out on long, gawky legs and staggers toward the house. Louis’ arm twitches, wanting to loop itself under one of Harry’s shoulders and help him in, but he seems to be doing relatively okay on his own, and it’s better that they have as little contact as possible. Harry doesn’t need to be able to hear the wild way Louis’ heart beats when they’re near each other. Louis is definitely going to be continuing to ignore _that,_ even if he can’t ignore Harry.

“Hang on,” he says, when they’re a few feet from the porch. He closes the couple of yards of distance he’s put between them, and digs in his pocket for the marker he’d swiped off Niall’s desk.

The marker he thought he’d swiped. _Dammit._ “Shit,” he says. “I don’t suppose you have a pen on you anywhere?”

“No,” Harry grits out, voice roughened with pain. “What do you need it for?”

“I gotta draw this on you—” Louis waves the piece of paper. “—so that you can get inside. Niall’s got the place warded like nobody’s business.”

“Ah.”

Louis runs a hand through his hair. He can’t leave Harry alone—that would be unbelievably stupid. He could just shout until Niall hears him and comes out, but there’s no guarantee he will. The house is weirdly soundproof. Maybe he could use some mud or something…

“You have a knife,” Harry says. “That’ll work, won’t it?”

“What?” he says, and then he gets it. _Oh._ Well, yes, it will. “Yeah,” Louis says. “Are you sure?” _Why do you care? He’s a demon. Stop being so squeamish, kid._

“It’s fine, just do it.” Harry holds out the arm not occupied by putting pressure on the wound in his side, and, gingerly, Louis takes hold. It’s larger than his own forearm, but it’s delicate, narrow, and mostly blank and smooth.

“Things I can’t?” he asks, and flicks open his knife, swallowing and willing his hand to steady.

“Just thought it was cool,” Harry grits out, nostrils flaring as the tip of the knife sinks in and Louis begins to pull, and then Louis stops looking at his face and concentrates on carving the symbol right and keeping his cuts shallow but deliberate, drawing out fat drops that swell and tremble before running down the flesh in stark rivulets. He works as quickly as he can without getting slapdash; his hands are shaking, slightly, and he grips the handle of the knife tighter and tenses his jaw against the persistent ringing in his ears and the little gasps Harry keeps letting out.

“Finished,” he says, and drops Harry’s arm like it’s burning him. Both hands are splotched with blood and he holds them away from himself, wary. He’s never seen it for himself, but he’s heard of people having awful reactions to demon blood.

Harry inspects his arm, turning it side to side. “Nice work,” he says.

“Thanks. C’mon.” Louis jerks his head toward the house. “You’re bleeding all over yourself.”

There’s already a ratty towel draped over the couch, along with a bottle of vodka, scissors, a needle, dental floss, and assorted bandages on the table. Louis can hear Niall and Liam talking somewhere in the back of the house; they seem as though they haven’t heard them. Harry walks oddly soundlessly, for someone so awkward and injured; then again, he’s also an immensely powerful and evil supernatural being, even if he’s a little like a hurt baby deer, at the moment.

He pulls his shirt up without being asked, and holds it there. The wound is worse than Louis thought; it’s three deep cuts, each ragged and deep and bleeding sluggishly, layers of skin ripped away to reveal white, fatty tissue, and, in a few places, the hard paleness of bone. It’s the kind of injury that makes people black out or go into shock, and if Harry were human Louis has no doubt he’d be dead, or at the very least in critical condition by now. And yet Harry’s been walking around, squabbling with Louis, getting on his nerves. Louis swallows; he has an unusually high tolerance for pain and gore, but he’s queasy imagining what this might feel like, and hesitates with the vodka bottle in hand.

“Here,” he says, and hands Harry a rag. “Bite down on that.”

Harry rolls his eyes, grimacing slightly. “Please don’t patronize me. I can handle some pain.”

“Suit yourself.” Louis tips the bottle and lets the alcohol slosh over the ruined skin, wincing in sympathy as the muscles surrounding contract and quiver and Harry lets out a low moan.

“You want a drink?” Louis asks, and rips open a sterile pad to begin cleaning. It doesn’t look like there’s any debris in there, which is good; his hands are trembling minutely like they used to do when he was a teenager and recoiled at the sight of blood.

“Nah.” Harry’s voice is tight and controlled. He keeps flexing his fingers. “Doesn’t do anything, really.”

“You like cocktails, though?” The bleeding hasn’t stopped, but it has slowed enough that Louis’ able to confirm there’s nothing stuck in there. He drops the soaked material in the trash and threads a needle; he has to try a few times before the floss goes through the eye, to his frustration.

Harry’s got his eyes closed, breathing heavily. “You remembered,” he says.

Louis shrugs. “I pay attention.” He digs his Zippo out of his pocket and flicks it open.

“I do like cocktails. They taste good.”

He lets the flame kiss the needle until it turns black and begins to smoke. “But you don’t get drunk?” The lighter goes back in his pocket, and he holds the needle at arm’s length, waiting for it to cool enough that he can work with it.

Harry’s breathing has calmed, slightly. “I can, it just takes a long time. ’m not a cheap date.” He half-smiles.

Louis snorts. “Wouldn’t have thought you were.” He leans in, mentally placing the first stitch. He’ll start from the bottom and work up to avoid irritating the other wounds while he works.

Harry flinches at the first puncture, and breathes out slowly, nostrils flaring. His voice is a little shaky when he says, “So you’ve thought about it?”

Louis gives the first stitch a sharp tug to check the tightness, and then he ties it off and snips the floss with nail scissors. “Not the greatest idea to piss me off while I’ve got a needle in your flesh.” He sinks it back in as he talks.

Harry only gasps a little, this time. “Some people are into that.”

“Shut up.” Louis’s left thumb and forefinger are getting slippery with blood holding the wound closed; he ties off the second stitch, and then soaks a rag in alcohol and wipes them off. He’s got a hangnail on his middle finger, and he winces through the burn before getting back to work.

“Don’t think I will,” Harry huffs. “You’re cute when you’re mad.”

“Shut up.” Louis feels the way his cheeks flame, and starts the next stitch with more force than strictly necessary.

“Ah,” Harry complains, but recovers quickly. “You’re like a...I dunno, a really tiny hedgehog. You get all prickly and try to make yourself look bigger and meaner than you actually are.”

“Oh, do I?”

“Yep.”

“What does that make you, then?” Louis muses, wiping his hand off again. “Maybe a flea. You’re annoying enough.”

“Hey,” Harry whines. “Terrible bedside manner.”

Louis snorts. “Sorry. I flunked out of demon nursing school.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Shocker.” Louis ties off the stitch and then wipes off the bottom wound, checking the soundness of his work. It holds together well, and he re-sterilizes the needle, cleans his hands, and moves on to the second one.

Harry’s quiet for a while, face only twitching minutely when Louis pushes the needle in. Louis finishes the second set of stitches quickly and silently.

“You know,” Harry says, just as Louis’ starting on the third gash, “In Hell, you just...heal.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like…” Harry trails off, staring into space. “It just happens. I don’t know if someone does it, even.”

“Huh,” Louis says, determinedly not looking up. The last cut is the deepest, and he needs to clean his hands after every stitch. It’s slow, frustrating work, and he feels sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip; his tongue darts out briefly and tastes salt. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Harry says quietly. “I suppose.” He seems like he wants Louis to ask, so Louis doesn’t, instead concentrating harder on making the stitches neat and even. They’re not as good as his dad would’ve done, but Troy would’ve judged them passable, at least.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks, startling him; he almost drops the needle. When he looks up, Harry’s stare is so intense it makes his whole body feel cold for a split second. He wets his lips and doesn’t answer. “You went all...weird.”

“Fine,” Louis says, when he finds his voice, and ducks his head. He coughs. He’s got maybe three or four stitches left to do, and the blood flow has slowed to a crawl. He leans in closer than he maybe needs to.

“Are you sure?” Harry presses. “You really didn’t seem normal.”

“Anything about this feel normal to you?” Louis snaps, and yanks too hard on the floss, pulling the stitch too tight. “Fuck.” He has to redo that one. “Hang on,” he says, and reaches for the scissors. “Don’t move.”

Harry doesn’t; he’s unearthly still, actually, reminding Louis once again that he’s not talking to a human, here; he’d forgotten, even though Harry was _just_ talking about Hell, for god knows what reason. Why would Harry tell him that you just healed automatically in Hell? Was he homesick? Was he trying to advertise the joint to Louis? Was it some kind of warning?

He shakes his head. He should keep quiet and finish this as quickly as possible. He shouldn’t push. He re-threads the needle and starts sewing, and of course, he pushes. “What were you talking about?” he asks. “Before, I mean, when you were talking about Hell. Why did you say that?”

“Don’t know,” Harry mumbles. “Why does anyone say anything?”

Louis pulls the stitch too tight again, but not so tight that he absolutely has to redo it. It’ll just be slightly uncomfortable for Harry. _Good,_ he thinks, savagely. It’ll be some small recompense for how uncomfortable Harry makes Louis.

“I just meant,” Harry starts, “that no one’s, like, done this, before, for me. Not since I was…”

“You were what?” Louis should shut this down, but he’s curious, needs to chase after that slight mournful pitch to Harry’s deep, smooth voice.

“I had a snowmobile accident,” Harry says, “when I was...eighteen, I think? Anyway, I split my chin open. Had to have stitches. Twenty.”

“Fascinating,” Louis bites out.

Harry lets out a shaky breath. “I just...fuck, I dunno why I’m saying any of this. I just remembered, was the point, I suppose.”

“Huh?”

“I’d forgotten,” Harry says softly. Against his will, Louis finds himself looking him in the eye. Harry’s gaze is a little wet. “It was...before. I just remembered it now.”

“Before, like…?”

“When I was human,” Harry mumbles, and squeezes his eyes shut, hard. _Oh god._ He’s not crying when he opens them, which is good. Louis doesn’t know what he’d do. Harry coughs and visibly steadies himself. “Anyway. It just surprised me, is all. Remembering.”

 _Last stitch,_ Louis thinks, and pushes the needle through, realizing that the give of Harry’s skin is familiar, now; he knows how much pressure to exert, how tight to pull. He doesn’t want to know, but he does, and he knows he’ll remember, and he hates it.

“Okay,” he says, his own voice sounding strange and far away. “All done. Forty-two, if you wanna know.”

“New record,” Harry says quietly.

Louis chuckles, wiping off his hands. He reaches for the bag full of bandages. “Gotta clean you off one more time.” Harry doesn’t move or flinch as Louis scrubs the blood off, or when he douses the whole area with vodka one more time, for good measure, or when Louis, making sure to touch him as little as possible, spreads anti-bacterial cream along the sutures, gently lays non-stick pads over them, and tapes the edges so they won’t move too much when he has Harry sit up, which Harry does when he’s told.

Louis reaches for the ACE bandage. He ignores the warmth of the skin on Harry’s ribcage, the two extra nipples he notices as he’s winding the bandage around Harry’s torso: methodical, detached. “Is that too tight?” he asks.

“No, ‘s fine,” Harry says. “Thanks.”

“Hold that there,” Louis says, and, when Harry does, he lets go and grabs a few safety pins, sticking all but one in his mouth. They’re cold, and the taste is familiar. He jabs himself in the finger twice while fastening the bandage in place, but he does the job. He’s held up his end, and now he gets to walk away.

“Thank you,” Harry says, quiet and earnest. Experimentally, he twists around and winces slightly, but then he nods. “Feels much better.”

“You’re welcome.” Louis’ mouth is dry. He watches Harry turn around on the sofa—just monitoring, just being responsible—and breathes out harshly when he sees the gash on his cheekbone. He’d forgotten. “Hang on.” Harry stills to look at him. “That needs to be cleaned,” he says, “or it’ll get infected.”

Like he, too, had forgotten it was there, Harry reaches up to gingerly touch the slash; it’s done bleeding, and starting to scab over, dark red and ugly. Louis’ hands start to move toward the supplies, and he stops himself.

“You can do it yourself, right?” he says, clenching his hands into fists. “Just clean it off with soap and water. Couple of butterfly closures should do it.”

“Um,” Harry says, dumbly. “Yeah, I guess?”

Louis bites his lip and sighs, but he’s already made the decision. “Nevermind. I’ll do it.”

“Okay.”

 _Just a job,_ Louis reminds himself, dousing another pad with alcohol and willing his heartbeat to slow down. _Just a job._ Harry’s closer when he looks up, staring at him again. “What?” he snaps. His neck is hot.

“Nothing,” Harry says, but he doesn’t drop his gaze.

“Turn your head that way.” Louis jerks his thumb to indicate the direction, but Harry’s brow furrows, and he doesn’t move, just keeps staring. “Oh, for god’s sake,” Louis mutters, and uses a knuckle to nudge Harry’s chin so the cut cheek is in front of Louis. He doesn’t do it as sharply as he means to, but he doesn’t let the touch linger, so that’s something.

Up close like this, Louis can see the soft, vulnerable lines of Harry’s neck; the fine, delicate skin covering his pulse, which Louis imagines he can hear and almost reaches out to touch before stopping himself, swallowing against the frantic pounding of his own jugular.

 _Do the fucking job,_ he tells himself. _Stop being stupid._

He means to work quickly, brutally, but, to his great frustration, his hands refuse to be anything but gentle as he cleans the blood off Harry’s pale cheek, noting the sharp cut of the bone beneath and the scent of him under the familiar sweat-and-blood. He can see the few hairs growing on his square jaw and the pores on his nose and the bruise-like shadows under his closed, twitching eyes and the red and purple capillaries peeking through the thin skin and the slight flutter of inky eyelashes, and he can feel the warmth of pulsing blood beneath the soft, soft skin under his fingertips.

He’s so _careful_ as he holds the edges of the wound together and fixes closures over it so that it’s just a thin, red line and not an open, gaping slash that looks too much like a mouth. He smoothes antibacterial cream along the line, and then again, just to make sure, and then again because he doesn’t know why, he just keeps doing it, until a hand—a big, warm, strong hand, a little sweaty—grips his wrist and stills the motion.

“Louis,” Harry says. “Louis.” He turns back toward him, and Louis doesn’t meet his gaze because he can’t stop looking at his mouth, open and pink and wet and soft-looking and making Louis thrum with _want_ and his tongue come out to wet his lips and his body cheat itself forward, closer, closer, giddy when he can feel the humid brush of Harry’s breath against his own panting mouth, pushing closer, closer, until they’re a hair’s breadth from each other and they still.

Harry still hasn’t let go of his wrist; his hand is still on Harry’s cheek. He’s going cross-eyed looking at the sharp bow of Harry’s lips, suddenly aching with hunger, hollow and greedy for the knowledge of what a real kiss might feel like. A moment passes, and another. Neither of them move—it would just take the slightest forward motion to disrupt the fragile equilibrium, to move this moment from liminal to definably one place or the other, but neither one make that move, and the moment hangs there, honeyed and heavy, until a creak from upstairs startles Louis out of his trance and he jerks back as if burned, nearly falling off the couch in his scramble to put as much distance between their bodies as he can.

The ringing in his ears crescendoes until it becomes near-deafening, and he reflexively claps his hands over them in an attempt to stifle it. Just when he thinks his head might actually explode, the high squealing begins to diminish, and he blinks his eyes open—he hadn’t realized he’d shut them—to see Harry staring at him, brow creased and face flushed pink. The slight rise and fall of his shoulders and his slack mouth indicate he’s panting. Louis might be panting, too. He can’t tell.

 _Have you lost your fucking mind, boy?_ his brain shrieks.

In fairness, Louis tries to argue, he hadn’t _done_ anything, exactly. He’d just _almost_ done it.

_That’s just as bad and you know it._

“Um,” he hears Harry say. It’s so...it’s so fucking _Harry_ that Louis absolutely can’t help the hysterical laughter that bubbles up from his gut and out of his mouth, making him bray like a hyena and clutch his cramping sides, trying to relieve some of the pressure. “Are you okay?” Harry’s voice sounds muffled, far away.

Louis waves a hand to indicate he’s not dying—hopefully the message gets across—and waits for the nervous breakdown he’s apparently having to pass. It feels a lot like the fits he had when he was a teenager, actually, which had always felt a little too much like the possession, his body acting of its own accord while his thoughts were subsumed with wordless emotion so powerful it made every part of him throb, simultaneously numb and vividly painful. He would come to who knows how much later, and find a glass smashed against the wall, his suitcase’s contents strewn about the floor, or a million other kinds of petty destruction. Depending on his father’s presence and mood, he might find himself aching or stinging as well, but it always felt far-off in that muted, dream-like _after._

He doesn’t hurt _,_ exactly, now, and there’s no physical evidence of his fugue state besides the demon staring at him, but he feels fourteen again, and it takes him a moment to remember where and when he is.

“Um,” he repeats, once he finds his voice. It’s scratchy and timid, trembling. He coughs, and his next words are more forceful. “I think you should...go.”

“Are you okay?” Harry repeats, inching closer to him slowly, so slowly, palms upturned and spread when he notices Louis’ slight, instinctive cowering.

“I’m fine,” Louis snaps, with less force than he means to. “Just...leave me alone, okay?”

Harry’s voice is so quiet he almost doesn’t hear him. “I don’t want to.”

“What?”

Harry looks back up at him, eyes wide and clear. “I don’t want to. I like you. You make me feel…” He trails off and blinks up at the ceiling, slowly, three times, before turning his gaze to his own clasped hands. “I, uh. I remember things, when I’m around you.”

“Things?” Louis repeats dumbly.

“Y’know...things. Human things. Forget it, it’s stupid—”

“No,” Louis finds himself saying. “I think I get what you mean.” He worries at the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m not gonna shake you off, am I?”

Harry shakes his head. “Probably not, no. ‘m quite persistent. And a bit thick.”

“Well, that I can agree with.” Louis snorts. The cut on Harry’s cheek stands out starkly. There’s a little bit of blood matting the hair that hangs in front of it. He needs a shower. “You’ve got blood in your hair,” he says.

One of Harry’s ridiculously large hands comes up to feel around. He scrunches his nose when he accidentally brushes against the damaged skin. “So there is.”

“You should, uh. Get that out.”

“Yeah.”

“Um. There’s a shower.”

Harry eyes him warily. “Is it gonna spit holy water at me?”

Louis laughs, sharp and surprising. “Nah, man, that shit’s expensive.”

Harry frowns. “That’s not very Christian. Charging for holy water, I mean.”

Louis shrugs. “What can you do? I need to make a new priest friend.”

“A new one?”

“Last one kicked it a while ago.”

“Oh.”

“It was a demon,” Louis says, looking him straight in the eye.

Harry swallows, and shifts. “I’m sorry,” he says, quietly. He sounds like he _means_ it, which throws Louis off, and, somehow, douses the anger that had started to simmer in his belly when he remembered Father Ray.

He scratches at his neck. “You didn’t do it. I mean, you didn’t, right?” he checks.

“No.” Harry’s quick to shake his head. “Um. So. I guess I should…”

“I’ll, uh, get you some towels. It’s in the next room on the right. Pressure’s a little funky, so give it a minute. And, um...I’m not going anywhere. So if you try anything, I will actually get out the holy water.”

Harry grimaces, and nods. “Fair. Um, thank you. For everything.”

“Don’t mention it.” Louis wants to be done with this conversation, wants a second alone to breathe and _think,_ and then wants to find Niall and figure out what the fuck to do. It feels like he’s gotten in over his head in the blink of an eye. Maybe he has; he’s getting towels for a demon so said demon can clean himself off in Niall’s shower after Louis just spent upwards of an hour tending to his injuries. It’s going to take some time to process. Louis’ not entirely sure this isn’t a dream, or that he hasn’t gone insane, but everything _feels_ so intensely, like how sunburn magnifies every touch by a hundred, makes everything raw and too much.

Harry’s _too much,_ and Louis realizes with dismay that he’s under his skin, now, that Louis let him in, and he’s standing here, now, with a threadbare but clean towel in his hands that he’s passing off to Harry with a murmured “no problem” at the thanks he gets. He’s lost already, he knows. From here on out it’s just a question of how much he’s losing, and how much he might be able to steal in return.

*

The first boy Louis kissed was named Max Ernstine, and he lived outside Philadelphia and was a junior at the high school Louis attended for three months during his sophomore year, while Troy went out of town after a lead that hadn’t panned out. He paid for a motel room through December and left Louis $300 in the safe, and Father Ray’s number, in case there was an emergency he couldn’t get there for.

Louis and Max weren’t in any classes together—Max was pretty smart, in a couple of AP classes, and Louis was just barely at grade level—but they did ride the same bus route. Louis lived at the very end, and Max got on a couple of stops after him, so Louis knew he lived in a nice neighborhood of detached houses with red brick and white siding.

Three days into his first week, Max got on the bus and then sat next to Louis, who startled at the squeak the green pleather-ish material made and the sudden presence on his right.

“Hi,” said Max, and smiled. It was crooked, and it suited him, as did his long, lanky frame. It was the kind of body you could tell he would fill out well given time, probably still adjusting to a recent growth spurt. His hair was slightly wild: thick, nearly black, and hanging down to his ears. Louis ran a hand through his close-cropped hair nervously, wishing for a little more to hide behind. One of the things his dad had made sure of before leaving was that Louis had a proper haircut.

“Hi,” he said, and smiled tentatively back.

Max waved to him during lunch the next day, and on Monday the following week, he asked Louis if he’d like to come over after school and hang out. He had just gotten a PS2, he said, and Louis practically vibrated at the prospect but tried to play it as cool as possible, not wanting to jeopardize a promising potential friendship by being too enthusiastic and weird.

He didn’t have a hard time making friends, exactly—his class-clown tendencies made him at least decently well-liked at most of his schools—but as he got older, he could feel the distance between him and his peers expanding oppressively, sometimes almost feeling like there was a huge block of plexiglass separating them, and every time he banged on it it just got thicker and let less sound through.

He started to write it down, once, during a freewrite in English class, but flushed red and ripped the page out, balling it up and sinking it into the recycle bin to general approval and a half-assed reprimand from the teacher. She’d been nice, but overbearing, always asking Louis to stay a minute after class and earnestly telling him he could come to her if anything was going on. He’d nod and smile and say that yes, he knew, and then get away as fast as possible. He got an A in her class, though, for the quarter he was there.

Max’s mom made them pizza rolls and they played the new Madden game, which Louis hadn’t played before but picked up quickly, starting to beat Max after a couple of hours and really enjoying himself all around. It didn’t exactly remind him of home—he tried not to think about home, anyway—everything a little too big and nice and calm, but he’d gone to some birthday parties in houses like this one, with big TVs and white sofas and polished floors. He started doing homework there once a week, and then twice, and then three times. He joined the Ernstines for dinner most days he was there, too, and it helped stretch the food money Troy had left. He felt bad for taking advantage of their generosity, but Max’s mom always rolled her eyes and told him not to worry when he wouldn’t stop thanking her, even tried to get him to accept leftovers once or twice. That was too close to charity, though, and she thankfully dropped it fairly quickly.

Max kissed him after a month. He tasted like cheese puffs, and there was a Febreze commercial blaring in the background. It was too wet and Louis felt like his heart has stopped until almost five minutes later, but he kissed back, and then he kissed back again, and again. When it was over, they looked at each other for a moment before snorting and breaking into giggles. Louis tossed a cheese puff into Max’s mouth and then bounced another one off his nose and licked off the fine dusting of orange powder.

Mrs. Ernstine walked in on them, once, and she just squeaked and made herself scarce while Max reassured a panicked, wild-eyed Louis that she knew and was cool about it. Dinner was a little stilted, and Louis squirmed and babbled when Mrs. Ernstine politely asked about his family, trying to change the subject by complimenting her lasagne, but she hugged him goodbye and asked, as she always did, if he was sure he was okay walking home. He reassured her it was only ten minutes, and then spent the forty it took to walk back to the motel chewing on his lip and grinning like a lunatic.

“How come you’ve never invited me over to your house?” Max asked, the next week, during the ride to school, while they were each using an earbud to listen to Max’s iPod. He paused the music and took his out; Louis followed suit.

He tried for a casual shrug. “No reason, really.”

Max frowned. “Is it, like...are your family homophobic, or something?” he asked tentatively.

 _I don’t know,_ Louis thought. _I never got a chance to find out, did I?_ He shrugged again. “Nah. There’s nothing really fun to do at my place, though.”

Max was silent for a while. “Jessica said you live in the Motel 6.”

Louis’ mouth went dry. “Uh.” He laughed. “Jesus Christ, does she ever shut up?”

Max laughed. “I know, I know, but like...is that why? I’m just asking.”

“We’re only here for a little bit,” Louis said quickly. “It’s nicer than you’d think. We get HBO. As much ice as you want.” He tried for a smile.

Max looked at him. “So could I come over sometime?”

Louis thought about the salt lines at the doors and windows and the Devil’s trap chalked on the ceiling, the guns hidden under the bed and sink and the knife in the bedside table drawer. “Sure,” he said. “Sometime. I’ll ask my dad.”

“It’s just you and your dad?”

“Um.” Louis shifted. The backs of his arms were sticking to the seat. “Yeah. Just the two of us.” He swallowed down a comment about how it was just Max and his mom, really, since his dad was out of town so much. He didn’t want to fight.

“Oh.” Max probably wanted him to elaborate, but Louis was good at changing the subject if he had any real skills besides shooting things. He wasn’t pushing it, and Louis wasn’t about to offer up his sob story for no reason. He glanced sideways—they sat at the back, together, and there was no one else for a few rows—and pecked Max on the cheek, once.

Max grinned. “You’re cute,” he said. “My house after school?”

Louis smiled back at him. “Sure thing.”

Louis’ cell phone rang later that week, while he was in the bathroom at Max’s house. Only a few people had that number; Louis’ heart began to pound as he fumbled to flip it open. “Hello?” he said, as quietly as he could.

“Louis.” Troy’s voice crackled through the speaker. “I’m on my way back, a couple of days out. Everything alright over there?”

“Yes sir,” Louis said. “Did the lead pan out?”

Troy sighed. “Sort of. I’ll fill you in when I get there. Make sure everything’s packed, would you?”

Louis swallowed. “Dad…” he began, and then trailed off.

“What, Louis? Spit it out.”

“Do we have to leave?”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“Nowhere,” Louis rushed, “I just like this school, and I was wondering.”

There was a long moment of staticky silence. “I’ll look for hunts in the area,” Troy said, slowly and with a slight edge, “but no promises. You’re going to class, then? How are your grades?”

“Good, sir.”

“Good job. I’m waiting to hear back from a buddy in Wyoming, but it might be a while. It’ll take me about three days to get back there. You hold tight, understood?”

“Understood.”

“See you soon.”

“Bye, dad.” He didn’t wait for the dial tone to click the phone shut.

Max was on the other side of the door when he left the bathroom. “What was that?” he asked urgently, ignoring the way Louis startled and made an abortive motion towards his boot. “Was that your dad? I thought you didn’t have a phone?”

“Jesus Christ, Max,” Louis panted. “Warn a guy, would you?”

Max ignored him. “Are you leaving?”

“What? No. Don’t be stupid.”

“You said you didn’t have a phone, though.”

“It’s just for emergencies,” Louis said. “My dad puts money on it.”

“Okay,” Max said. “Sorry, I just thought...nevermind. Are you hungry?”

Louis swallowed, and thought about the empty safe. “Starved.”

True to his word, Troy returned two days later. He complimented Louis on the salt lines and the re-drawn Devil’s trap, and then they went out for burgers. He hadn’t found the demon, but he was confident he’d made substantial progress—he wouldn’t tell Louis all the details; Louis didn’t find them out until years later, reading Troy’s slanted, cramped script—and that they could clear out of here pretty soon.

Traitorously, Louis’ eyes started to burn, and he stared at his half-eaten burger, suddenly less hungry than he’d been in months. “Oh,” he said.

“What’s wrong, son?”

Louis shook his head. “Nothing, I just…” He took a deep breath, willing his voice to stop wavering and cracking. “Liked this school, is all. My teachers are cool.”

“You make friends?”

Louis nodded. “A few.”

“Well, look at that. You’ll make more. I’m still waiting on that call, we won’t leave for another week at the earliest.”

He spent all week trying to figure out what to tell Max and whether to tell him anything. He cleaned the guns and helped pack up the Camaro on Wednesday night, and went over to the Ernstines’ as usual on Thursday.

“You okay?” Max asked. The coffee table was covered with notebooks, most of them Max’s, and textbooks, belonging to both of them, left open with their spines bent. “Do you feel sick or something?”

“No,” Louis said, quietly, and then coughed and repeated himself more forcefully. “No, I’m fine, why do you ask?”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re all jumpy. Did I do something?”

“What? No.” Louis pressed his pen a little too hard into the English paper he’d been working on and made a small hole. It didn’t matter, he figured. Not like he was going to turn it in. Not like it was any good in the first place.

“Are you sure?” Max pressed. “Because you’re acting really weird.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis murmured. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Max said. “Fine.”

They didn’t say much more, and at five thirty, Louis said, “I should head home.”

“Okay,” Max said, standing up. “I’ll walk you out.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to. Are you sure I didn’t do something?”

“I’m sure, Max.”

They stopped at the doorway. “See you tomorrow,” Max said, and dropped a chaste kiss to Louis’ mouth, aiming a little too high and catching too much of his top lip.

“Bye,” Louis said, and turned on his heel quickly enough that (he hoped) no one would see the wetness of his eyes, and walked back to the motel as quickly as he could, a record thirty-one minutes.

“What’s wrong with you?” Troy asked, when he looked up from the notebook he was writing in and saw Louis sitting on the end of one of the queen beds, staring at his shoes with his hands in his lap and contorting his face into whatever expression felt like it would keep the burning in his throat and eyes at bay.

Louis shook his head.

“Words, Louis,” Troy said sharply, and it felt like he stuck a pin in Louis, if Louis were a water balloon filled beyond capacity. Which was a stupid metaphor, Louis chided himself. He was full of those. To his humiliation, he felt a searing tear collect in the corner of his eye and tremble a moment before dropping quick and salty down his cheek and into his mouth. _Stupid._

“Are you hurt?” Troy quickly stood up and came over, holding Louis by the shoulders and checking him for injuries. “Son? Louis. Hey!” He snapped his fingers in front of Louis’ face. “What’s goin’ on?”

Louis didn’t trust his voice not to come out high and watery and ugly, but he didn’t not answer direct questions. “Nothing,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut hard. “I’m not hurt, I’m fine.”

Troy was silent for a while, and then sighed. “This have anything to do with us hitting the road tomorrow?”

Louis shrugged.

“Jesus Christ,” his father said lowly, and audibly breathed out through his nose. “Look, you’re a teenager, and this all feels really important, but I promise in ten years you’re not gonna give a shit who you were friends with in high school, and they’re not gonna give a shit either. Not worth cryin’ about.”

Louis sniffed and knuckled hard at his eyes. “Yep. Sorry.”

Troy looked at him quizzically, and then smiled as if he’d remembered a word he’d been hunting for for hours. “Wait,” he said, clapping Louis’ shoulder. “Did you find yourself a girl?”

Louis stiffened and swallowed against the threat of more tears. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, uh. Yeah.”

His father ruffled his hair and stood up. “Chin up, kiddo. Lotta fish in the sea. Sorry I didn’t get to meet her, though. She cute?”

 _Me too,_ Louis thought, and nodded, wiping at his eyes one more time before excusing himself to the bathroom to take a punishingly hot shower.

Max is married, now. Louis knows from his semi-annual check of his Facebook profile; every time, he considers hitting the _add friend_ button and then closes the window before he can actually do it. He and his husband have two Shiba Inu and look very happy with each other. The dogs’ names are Thelma and Louise.

*

“Why is there a demon in my shower?”

Louis’ head snaps up. “Oh shit.”

“Oh shit is right.”

“Niall, look, let me explain—”

“It’s fine, I’m not arsed with you. There’s a Devil’s trap under the tile, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Really?”

Niall scoffs. “I’m insulted.”

“Right, always prepared.”

“Like a Boy Scout.”

“Like a Boy Scout. What are you doing up?”

“Could ask you the same, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the demon in my shower,” Niall says.

There’s something wrong; Louis can sense it. “Seriously.”

Niall sighs, and goes still and quiet, and Louis’ heart drops into his stomach. “There was a fire,” he says. “At, um. At the Truckstop.”

“Oh?” Louis can hear the strangled quality to his voice, like he’s got a bruised trachea all over again. He touches it to check, reflexively, confused when it’s painless. “Was it…”

“Nick’s in hospital.”

Louis swallows. “How many?”

“One death, lots of injuries. Not sure on the totals yet.”

“When?”

“Fire department’s still trying to put it out.”

“Fuck.” Louis barely feels it when he half-falls into the chair, or the shock that radiates up his arms when his elbows land hard on the table. “Any chance it was an accident?”

“I don’t think so,” Niall says apologetically. “Someone in Clackamas called in about Stasha a couple of hours ago.”

“How long is a couple of hours?”

“Two.” Niall pauses. “You couldn’t have made it,” he adds, softly. “Seriously, Louis.”

Louis ignores him. “Do we have an ID on the fatality?”

The corners of Niall’s mouth turn down even further; he shakes his head slightly. “Nick’s da.”

“Fuck.” The numbness in Louis’ legs has spread almost up to his shoulders.

“I’m really sorry, Lou.”

“What was he even doing there?” Mr. Grimshaw (Louis wasn’t entirely sure of his first name—they hadn’t had that kind of relationship) had moved to Florida years ago, saying he was sick of grumbling about the weather in Portland and wanted to be somewhere it actually got warm once in awhile. He’s the only hunter Louis knows who’s actually retired. Knew, now, he supposes.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Niall says. “Wait until the morning to leave, would you?”

“Niall—”

“She’s long gone by now,” Niall cuts him off. “I guarantee you. A few hours of sleep—”

“Is the difference between finding her before the demon riding her kills someone else, or kills her, and not finding her.”

Niall shakes his head. “She’ll have gone underground, Lou. You know how this one operates. You aren’t going to find her unless she wants to be found.”

“Well what the fuck am I doing, then?” Louis snaps, his voice rising with each word. “What exactly do you suggest I do?”

“Um.”

Louis whirls around, livid and feral in the blink of an eye. “You,” he snarls, his legs propelling him across the floor and crowding Harry back into the bathroom, against the pink tiled wall, close enough that he has to look up at him to see the momentary flicker of fear, satisfying even with his height disadvantage. Harry feels _small,_ vulnerable with just a towel protecting his torso, and Louis pushes him in the sternum, hard, because he can.

“Where the fuck do you get off? You cut yourself open so you can come up here and distract me with your fucking sob story while your buddy fucking burns people alive, is that what you do?” He shoves harder. “Fucking answer me, you piece of shit.”

He’s waiting for Harry’s eyes to go red, for a malicious smile to slide onto his handsome face, for him to start gloating about how easy Louis has been to play. And he has been; he’s been easy. But Harry just keeps looking at him with that deer-in-the-headlights expression, mouth hanging slack and dumb.

“Louis,” Niall starts.

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis seethes. “You. Explanation. Now.” He punctuates every word with a jab to Harry’s chest, wondering how hard and how many times he has to push for this fucker to finally drop the act and _do something._ “What, you lost your words? Cat got your fucking tongue? _Speak._ ”

“When you asked, before,” Harry says, shaking slightly. “When you asked if I could track other demons, is this what you were talking about?”

Louis doesn’t have time for this shit. “Stop asking me questions and answer the one I just asked you or so help me god I will make you wish you’d never crawled out of the pit.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with your friend, if that’s the question.” Harry tilts his head slightly. “What did they do to you?” His voice is getting steadier, and the fear in his eyes has extinguished to a mild confusion. Louis hates it.

“What do you mean?” Louis’ fingers twitch for his knife. He glances at Niall, who’s got a hand on the hilt of his.

“Louis,” Niall says calmly, “step out of the Devil’s trap, would you?”

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Harry says over Louis’ head, looking straight down the hall at Niall.

“Louis,” Niall repeats, more urgently.

A bead of moisture drops from Harry’s towel-dried hair onto his shoulder. Louis watches it as it rolls down his arm, over the muscle and sinew. “What,” he says, quieter this time, squaring his shoulders, “the fuck did you mean by that?”

“You are talking about a demon, right? I didn’t misinterpret that?”

“Yes, we were having a private conversation about a demon,” Louis snaps. “Great comprehension skills.”

“I just meant,” Harry says, slow as ever, plodding along from one end of the sentence to the other as if he has all the time in the world, “that it must’ve done something to you.”

Louis snorts. “What, you don’t tell each other the gory details of how you fucked with people?”

“I don’t know every single demon that exists,” Harry says, voice edged, “and contrary to what you seem to think, Hell doesn’t revolve around you. I don’t _know,_ I just guessed from the way you’re acting.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “And how am I acting?”

“Like a child,” Harry says. “I’m offering to _help._ ”

“Lou,” Niall says.

“Shut up. You wanna help, huh? Or do you just wanna stab me in the fucking back?”

“I’ve had enough chances,” Harry says. “Don’t you think? If I wanted you dead, you would be.” It’s deathly serious. Louis knows he means it, and what’s more, it’s true—he’s thought it himself enough times.

He doesn’t say so. “I’ll send you straight back to Hell, swear to god.”

“You’ve had enough chances for that, too,” Harry says quietly. “If you wanted to, you would’ve done it already.”

That’s true, too, god help him. “Don’t think I won’t,” Louis snaps, but he can hear the falter in his own voice, the hesitation.

 _He could help,_ a quiet, traitorous part of him thinks. _How many more people have to die because you can’t swallow your pride?_

 _He’s a demon,_ another part answers, loud and forceful.

The response comes quietly, but just as strong, sending a chill through his core. _It’s been thirteen years, and what do you have to show for it?_

Blinking slowly at him, Harry spreads his arms. The towels slips down an inch, revealing more pale chest and stark black ink. The faces of two swallows come into view. “Go ahead,” he says, voice flat even though the words are a challenge. “Do it.”

_Thirteen years and you’re no closer than when you started. All that’s changed is the body count._

The staccato _thump-thump-thump_ of Louis’ heart echoes in his ears, out of step with the steady drip of the leaky shower head and the groan of the pipes. The noise builds to a static ringing that drowns out every other thought. He doesn’t tell his limbs what to do, but they act anyway, crowding Harry back against the wall until the wetness of his skin is soaking into Louis’ shirt. He watches the drops bead and run down in streams and remembers, suddenly and vividly, sitting on Max’s couch being quizzed him on the physical properties of water for his chemistry test.

 _Surface tension,_ he remembers reciting, _is the elastic tendency of a fluid surface caused by cohesion of molecules to a surface._ A drop was formed when a mass of liquid was stretched, surface tension suspending it until gravity overpowered it and it released from the surface it was clinging to, free-falling in a sphere or running down in a stream. Gravity stretched drops into streams, and surface tension pinched streams into drops. One force always overpowered another.

A bead of water swells on the sharp cut of Harry’s chin, and it trembles for a long moment before it detaches from the skin and drops away cleanly, straight down. Louis doesn’t see where it falls.

He squeezes his eyes shut a millisecond before he’s biting at Harry’s mouth, pressing as hard as he can and reveling in the way Harry presses back but lets himself be pushed against the wall, fights Louis for control but loses even though he could probably overpower him in a heartbeat. It’s heady, the same way the taste of Harry’s big mouth is, the sharp scent of sweat and soap on his skin, the cloying warmth of his skin, the slick chill of his hair where Louis’ gripping it. He hadn’t realized he was doing that; he pulls harder, and Harry whines into his mouth. Louis swallows the sound and is satiated for a moment before the hunger comes roaring back to life, gnawing at his insides. He’s helpless to do anything but answer to its demands, pushing for more and more and more and sucking it all down greedily when Harry gives it to him.

“Okay,” Louis gasps when he pulls away to breathe, more feeling the words coming out of his mouth than hearing them. “We’ve got a deal. God help me, this _is_ the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but we’ve got a deal.”

“Wait,” Harry says, as Louis ducks in to kiss him again, starving now that he’s had a taste. “You hide me, I help you find this demon. Deal?”

His frenzy builds to a peak, colors and sensations sending his head spinning. “Deal,” he says, dives back in; Harry’s mouth just opens for him and lets him loot and pillage at will. He loses track of time for a while as the want ripping through him begins to abate.

Dimly, he becomes aware of the rest of his body—first the parts pressed up against Harry, and then his feet on the floor and the press of his forearm against the cold tile—and the white noise begins to peter out. The world re-expands beyond Harry’s oddly high, sweet noises and the catch of his teeth, outside noises filtering back in.

“Um,” he hears Niall say. “Louis?”

It’s enough of a shock to his system for the rational part of his brain to spring back to frantic, screaming life. _What did you do?_ it shrieks. _What the fuck did you just do? Have you lost your mind entirely? Have you gone completely insane? Have you forgotten every single thing I taught you?_

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he watches a few more sluggish drops meander down Harry’s arm, slow but persistent: gravity and adhesion each perpetually testing their strength against the other’s. Harry might be that kind of unstoppable, tireless force. Louis hopes he can dig in his heels deep enough to at least stay upright.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I am SO sorry this took so long--my housing situation collapsed and I had to move on very short notice, among some other assorted weirdness I'm blaming on Mars--but hopefully you enjoy it! We're getting into the parts I'm really excited about, and while this chapter gave me a ton of trouble, my wonderful beta Kate was incredibly helpful in figuring out how to move the story along in the way I wanted to. Many thanks. <3
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: a little bit of blood, homophobia, internalized homophobia, smoking, discussion of death & torture, alcohol use, some PTSD symptomatology (mostly dissociation), and sexual content that is consensual but unhealthy. If you need more details on any of these, please feel free to write to me here or on tumblr or wherever, and if I've missed something, please let me know and I apologize in advance! There's a bunch of heavy shit in here/coming up in future chapters, and I don't want anyone to be taken by surprise.
> 
> Anyway, without further ado, here is this monster of a chapter. Hope you like it! Please comment/share/etc. if you feel moved to do so.

God knows where he got it from or how or why, but Niall has a tattoo machine in a box in his attic, which he hands to Louis with a significant look. Louis is dubious, but he acknowledges the necessity of binding Harry as soon as possible and not involving an innocent tattoo artist in the process, and he trusts Niall as much as he trusts anyone.

Unfortunately, agreeing to this plan seems to mean agreeing to tattooing Harry himself, given that he’s the only one among him, Liam, and Niall who’s got enough experience with spellwork and isn’t deathly terrified of needles. And that it had been his reckless, impulsive decision to make the deal in the first place.

Neither Liam nor Niall had really freaked out, which Louis doesn’t know how to react to. It’s a relief that they’re not angry with him—Liam’s big, strong, lethal, and Louis was poised to flee while he explained what he had done—but it scares him that they don’t seem to realize just how dangerous a situation he’s put them all in. What’s worse, they both _like_ Harry, which makes it harder for Louis to repress the part of him that really likes him too. He’d come downstairs this morning after a fitful, sleepless night to find Harry flipping pancakes at the stove and Niall doubled over in honking laughter. On closer inspection, he had tears in his eyes.

 _I’m the only one who can make Niall laugh like that,_ a nasty, jealous part of him thought. It had taken him aback with its pure irrationality and pettiness. He’s not supposed to feel like this anymore, but he figures it must be the demon proximity. It makes him even more anxious to get Harry mostly powerless, which Niall assures him is completely possible, and, in fact, “a piece of cake, Tommo, don’t you worry.”

Niall spends the whole morning in his office/living room/library, poring over huge, dusty books with thick, heavy pages that might be made of some kind of skin, and scribbling notes and symbols on a legal pad at terrifying speed. Louis is sort of awed, as he always is.

Harry only complains a little bit about being told to sit and stay where he is: under a Devil’s trap, within Louis’ view, with his legs bound to the chair’s legs. The last part might be overkill. Louis can admit that much. It gives him a little bit of peace of mind, though, knowing Harry at least has to make a lot of noise if he wants to try something. He doesn’t; he just sits, slouching a little, and seems perfectly content reading a book he’d plucked from one of Niall’s teetering bookcases. Let no one say Louis is not a benevolent jailer.

He even lasts half an hour before he’s overwhelmed by the urge to needle Harry about his book choice.

 _“Harry Potter?_ Seriously? Narcissistic much?”

Harry doesn’t look up at him, but his cheeks flush slightly, and his nose scrunches for a moment. “I’ve heard good things,” he says.

Louis feels his eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. “You haven’t read them? What, too low-brow for you?”

“No,” Harry says mildly, and turns a page. “Just never got around to it.”

“Not when you were a kid?” Louis blurts.

That makes Harry still for a moment, his eyes fixed on one spot on the page. “Weren’t around when I was a kid,” he says, and goes on reading.

Oh. Right. Not that he wants to know, but—“When were you born, anyway?”

“As a human?”

“Yes, as a human. What else would I have meant?”

Harry tilts his head, considering.“Well, there’s a…sect, you could call it, of, um, demons who think of turning as, like, being born again.”

Louis stares at him. “Evangelical demons?”

“Demongelicals,” Harry says, corner of his mouth ticking up slightly. Louis scoffs. “Come on, that was funny. But sort of. They’re a bit much.”

“What, they don’t Bible thump, do they?”

“In a different way,” Harry says. “It’s very selective Bible thumping. And there’s some stuff you don’t have up here. I don’t know much, though. I try to avoid them as much as possible. I don't like to be impolite and tell them to shut up, but they just go _on_ and _on.”_

“Huh.” Louis snorts. “Sounds pretty familiar.”

“I told you,” Harry says lightly. “As above, so below. There’s plenty of variety downstairs.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to convince me you’re one of the good ones, or something.”

Harry shrugs. “I was just talking. I mean, if you could stop acting like I’m waiting to rip your organs out and eat them in front of you, that’d be aces, but I can’t really control that, can I?”

“Are you not?”

“Disembowelment is really messy,” Harry says, wrinkling his nose. “These boots are Saint Laurent. I don’t fancy getting your guts all over them, thank you.

Louis snorts, despite himself. “That’s your only objection?”

Harry shakes his head. “I’d also be deprived of your good temper and sparkling wit,” he says, morbidly as always. “Can’t imagine what I’d do.”

“Die of boredom. But for real, is that the only reason? I thought demons’ purpose in life was to cause as much suffering as possible.”

Harry’s face goes tight. “For some,” he says, a sharp grit to his voice, “you’d be right. But that’s only because they’re trying to avoid suffering themselves. That’s...you know what, nevermind, you’re not gonna listen.” He turns a page. “Ow! Fuck,” he curses and sticks his knuckle in his mouth.

Louis just stares. There’s so much that seems so...human, about Harry. Here’s this demon sitting in Niall’s living room and giving himself papercuts and being a baby about them.

After a minute, it’s evident Harry isn’t going to talk again, so Louis finds himself pushing. “I am listening. What did you mean by that?”

Harry frowns at him. “You know how demons get made, don’t you?”

He does. _Demons are human souls who have gone to Hell and been tortured until there’s no humanity left._ “Well, yeah,” he says, a little hesitantly. “Torture, right?”

The frown deepens. “Yes.”

Louis scratches the back of his neck. “Right, and then…?”

Harry doesn't look at him when he answers, staring off into middle distance and speaking in a neutral, if slightly strained tone. “When you’ve been in pain for that long, all you can think about is how to get away from it. Sometimes that means killing people. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

Louis frowns. That sounds like an excuse. “So, what, you don’t kill people, you just buy their souls?”

“I keep my head down,” Harry snaps, and turns back to the book on his lap.

“How are you liking it?” Louis asks. “The book, I mean.”

“I’d like it better if I got to read it without being interrupted,” Harry mumbles, but he doesn’t sound angry, now, just grumpy, like a cat or something.

“Get used to it,” Louis says, feeling a smile tug at his lips, unbidden. “Where in it are you?”

“Harry’s talking to the snake,” Harry says flatly. “It’s very exciting.”

“Oh man, wait until the second one,” Louis says, “there’s this _huge—_ ”

“La la la,” Harry starts singing, fingers shoved in his ears and eyes shut, as though Louis is going to spoil him via charades or something. It’s ridiculous, and Louis can’t help laughing. He really can’t.

“Louis,” Niall calls from across the room, “stop flirting with the demon and get your arse over here. You've got work to do.”

*

Harry ends up with three tattoos—all small and clustered on his left wrist, where they blend in among the various poorly done scribbles already there. Louis wonders if they were Harry’s vessel’s or if he’s gotten them done since, but doesn’t ask, biting his lip hard against the urge to and focusing on making the lines solid.

He probably goes too deep—there’s a lot of blood—but Harry doesn’t say anything or move his arm. Louis can hear the way his breathing picks up, though, and when he shuts the machine off and looks up Harry’s face, slack-jawed with blown pupils and flushed cheeks.

“How are you feeling?” Louis asks, curtly, and begins packing away the materials.

“Little woozy,” Harry murmurs, using one hand to punch the bridge of his nose and lifting the other wrist to inspect the symbols: a binding spell, so that Harry can’t leave his vessel; a passkey for the wards that will hide him from other demons (Louis had argued that the one he’d _carved into Harry’s arm_ ought to be enough, but apparently it was too slapdash for Niall’s liking); and the one Louis squirmed most while doing, the one that Niall says will keep Harry from moving more than 100 yards from Louis. Louis would be skeptical if he didn’t know firsthand how sound Niall’s spellwork always was. As it is, he’s just uncomfortable.

“Is it really necessary?” he’d pleaded with Niall.

“Yes,” Niall said lightly. “You made the deal, mate. This is the only way to make sure he doesn’t go wandering off.”

“Can’t we just keep him in a Devil’s trap or something?”

“Hey,” Harry snapped. “That’s inhumane.”

“You’re not human,” Louis pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean you can treat me like some kind of zoo animal.”

“I’m sorry, I was under the impression you were _willing to do anything._ ” Louis rolled his eyes.

“I can’t use any of my powers if I’m in a Devil’s trap,” Harry argued. “And it’d be a hassle for you to have to keep moving it around.”

“And having you up my ass all the time won’t?”

Harry threw his hands up. “You agreed to it!”

“Lads,” Niall said, “please use your indoor voices. Louis, Harry’s right that this is the best way to assure the terms of the deal are met. It’s enough distance that you can stay in separate rooms.”

Louis scoffed. “Like I’m gonna take my eye off him.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “What, you think I’m gonna smother you with a pillow or something?”

“Wouldn’t put it past you,” Louis grumbled. “Wouldn't ruin your shoes that way.”

“It’d be counterproductive.” Harry was getting visibly agitated. “We’ve been over this.”

“Fine, whatever.” Louis slapped his thighs hard enough to sting. “I’ll get the fucking machine out.”

Now, with the tattoos pushed into Harry’s delicate skin, Louis finds himself squirming again with the knowledge that he can’t put more than a cursory amount of distance between him and Harry anymore, not if he wants to find the demon they’re after. _All the more reason to get it done quickly,_ he reminds himself. _And then you can be finished, for good._

“Drink some juice or something if you’re feeling faint,” Louis says, and stands up to walk away, ignoring the hot flush creeping through his abdomen at the way Harry’s sprawled on the sofa looking like he just got fucked. Which is not a thought Louis should be having, and it’s even more distressing now that he’s relatively certain Harry’s not using any kind of supernatural emotional manipulation on him. He pushes it out of his mind and concentrates on getting everything back into the box the way it was when he opened it.

“Nice job,” Harry says, studying the lines.

Louis snorts. A demon telling white lies so as not to hurt his feelings. _God. I thought I’d seen it all._ “Thanks. Go ahead and wrap it up, would you?”

“You’re not going to do it for me?” Harry sounds put-out, and Louis rolls his eyes, mouth twitching.

“No, I’m not, you big baby. That was a one-off. Does it work?”

Harry makes a face like he’s in pain, cheeks puffing out and flushing. After a few moments, he exhales harshly, nostrils flaring. “It works,” he says. “Can’t leave.” He doesn’t sound particularly happy about it. His hands twitch.

Louis’ doubtful, but he’ll leave the testing to Niall. He doesn’t feel like trying an exorcism today. His head fucking hurts, and if he’s got 100 yards to work with, he’s damn well going to go as far away from Harry as he can within them.

*

“You want to talk about it?” Liam says. He drops the rag he’s been using to clean the guns, black with soot and grease. He’s got a smudge of it on his forehead.

“Not particularly,” Louis replies. A bit of rock salt gets caught in a cut on his index finger. The pain is brilliant and brief, and he curses before going back to packing salt pellets. It’s mindless, and boring, and probably pointless, but it’s something to do with his hands.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Liam asks, as if Louis didn’t just say he didn’t want to talk about it.

“No,” he says, flatly. No use lying when it might get someone killed. Liam deserves to know what he’s gotten them into. “It was impulse, okay? Stupid.”

“Okay,” Liam says, surprising him. Louis was expecting him to push and needle at him. It’s un-Liam-like to just accept things without explanation.

“Really? You don’t wanna fucking kill me for tying us to a demon?”

Liam shrugs. “It’s only you who’s technically tied to him, and he seems alright.”

Louis scoffs. “He’s a demon.”

“I know that,” Liam says mildly. “He still seems alright, though.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Louis mumbles. He normally sleeps with one eye open; he doesn’t imagine he’s going to get any until he’s shaken Harry off.

“I’m not,” Liam says. “Are you?”

“No,” Louis says firmly, and another piece of rock salt lodges itself under his skin. “ _Fuck,_ ” he hisses. “Goddamn motherfucking bastard piece of _shit._ ”

“Nice language,” Liam says.

“Fuck _off._ ”

“Any more news from Nick?”

Louis jolts slightly at the change of subject. He’s been trying not to think about it—of course, it keeps creeping into his thoughts, imagining the Truckstop swallowed in a vicious blaze, charred bar stools and melted pint glasses and the odor of burnt flesh. He’s salted and burned enough corpses that he’s more or less inoculated to the smell, but occasionally it still sends him back to a thick black fog and the wail of sirens and the oppressive heat of it, burning his face and arms.

“No,” he says, when he remembers to. He sounds distant to himself. He clears his throat, trying not to choke on the sudden smoky feeling. “The hospital won’t say anything unless we go in person.”

“As ourselves, or…”

“Feds.” Louis grimaces.

“Are we bringing Harry?”

Louis exhales. “I don’t know,” he says. “To Portland, definitely. We have to, since Niall’s basically magically handcuffed us together.”

“You made the deal,” Liam points out.

“I _know._ ” Liam doesn’t need to remind him. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

“Wouldn’t he be useful?”

“Maybe,” Louis hedges. “Maybe not. We’ll see.”

“How do you know Nick, again? You never said.”

Louis swallows. “Family friend,” he says lightly. “Dad used to leave me there sometimes while he was hunting.”

“He didn’t take you with him?”

“Most of the time.” Louis clears his throat again, tasting ash. “If he thought I could handle it.”

“You don’t really talk about him.”

“No shit,” Louis snaps, and then deflates. “Sorry. Edgy.”

“It makes sense,” Liam says. “That’s the third time you’ve packed that same shell.”

“Shit.” Louis puts it down and rubs his temple with salt-roughened fingers. “How fast could you make Harry a badge?”

“Couple hours,” Liam says. “I can do it on the road.”

“You’re a lifesaver. What did I do before you and your laminator?”

“I don’t know. I know _I_ committed fewer felonies.” Liam smiles, a little ruefully.

“Goody two-shoes,” Louis says. “I didn’t make you steal the badge machine thingy.”

“Eloquent,” Liam says, and then, “and yes, you absolutely did.”

“I _heavily suggested_ it.”

“With a gun in your hand.”

“I wasn’t going to shoot you!”

“You say that like you haven’t shot me before.”

“It _barely grazed you,_ Payno, and it was salt anyway. I wasn’t even aiming for you. Don’t be a baby. You were wearing a bulletproof vest.”

“Still.”

“Shut up.” Louis finishes one last shell. That should do them pretty well. “You ready to hit the road in an hour or so?”

“Ready,” Liam says. “Are you?”

“Always,” Louis says, with a tight smile.

*

The drive to Portland isn’t long, but the air feels thick and heavy, and Louis can’t stop himself from glancing in the rearview mirror every few seconds to check that Harry’s still there, buckled in and reading his book. He’ll get nauseous doing that. If he throws up in the car there’ll be Hell to pay. Louis had informed him of as much, and Harry had just shrugged.

“They’re about to go in the forbidden corridor,” he’d said. “I need to know what happens.” Somehow, Harry had persuaded Niall to lend him the entirety of the _Harry Potter_ series. He hasn’t let Louis borrow a book in _years._

“I’ll never see it again,” Niall would grouse, and slap his hand away. “Get yer own.”

Louis actually finds himself beginning to get genuinely agitated about the fact that Niall will loan out his cherished books to a demon and not to Louis, and he determinedly focuses back on the road, switching lanes abruptly for something to do. A horn blares behind him and he sticks his hand out the window to flip them off.

“Louis,” Liam says, sharply. “Watch it.”

“Sorry,” Louis mumbles, although he’s not.

“Don’t worry,” Harry says from the back seat. “I can always take over.”

“Oh, well _that’s_ reassuring,” Louis snaps. _Demonic cruise control. Great._ “Don’t you fucking dare. I thought you couldn’t do shit like that outside a deal, anyway?”

“More of a guideline than a rule,” Harry says mildly. “And we are in the context of a deal, so. Technically I could just teleport us there.”

“Really?” Liam says, sounding impressed.

“Don’t indulge him,” Louis says. “And I don’t believe you.”

“I can,” Harry insists.

“Why don’t you, then?”

Harry shrugs. “Too much effort.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Sure. Alright. Whatever you say.”

“Liam,” Harry says pleasantly, “whereabouts are you from?”

“What?” Louis says.

Harry doesn't look at him. “I wasn’t talking to you. Liam?”

“Uh,” Liam says, “Indiana.”

“Lovely,” Harry says. “I spent some time in Bloomington.”

“That’s where I went to college.” Liam sounds excited. Louis kind of wants to punch him. He might be able to do it without crashing the car.

“Oh! Small world,” Harry says.

“It is,” Liam agrees.

Louis’ pretty sure if he looked in the mirror at himself he’d be able to see steam coming out of his ears. Fuck Harry and his ability to get under Louis’ skin like this. He steps harder on the gas. When he chances a glance to the backseat, Harry meets his gaze, and he looks away an instant later, blood rushing to his face. _He just pisses you off,_ he tells himself. _That’s all it is. He’s just an infuriating demon who happens to be possessing an unfairly hot person, and you need to get laid. That's all it is. That's it._

*

Nick’s awake when they arrive, and hooked up to an oxygen tank, which rhythmically wheezes in time with the movements of the pump.

“Officers,” he croaks. Louis winces. He knows the feeling; his own throat scrapes in sympathy. “How lovely of you to stop by.”

“Hey, Grimmy,” Louis says quietly. “How’re you feeling?”

Nick closes his eyes. “Please don’t,” he rasps. “Just be normal.”

Louis clears his throat. Right. “Will do.” He pauses, trying to remember what his normal self would say. “You look like shit,” he settles on.

Nick laughs. “There we go. Who’s this?” He only barely raises his pointer finger towards Harry.

 _Right to the point, then._ “This is Harry,” Louis says carefully.

“Hello,” Harry says from where he’s standing, slightly set back from Louis and Liam. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” He sounds disturbingly genuine. It makes Louis’ skin prickle.

“Thank you,” Nick says. “Those are beautiful.”

Louis frowns and turns around; Harry’s holding a gigantic bouquet in reds and oranges, so vibrant it makes Louis’ eyes hurt a little bit. He hadn't had it when they'd come in.

“Where did you get that?” he asks dumbly.

Harry shrugs. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, and sets it down on the table across from Nick’s bed. “This room needed some color.”

It figures that Louis’ ended up chained to a demon who brings people flowers and has opinions about hospital decor. What the _fuck._

“I like this one,” Nick says. “Where’d you find him, Tommo?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis says, at the same time as Harry says, “A bar.”

“Shut up,” Louis hisses over his shoulder, and pointedly ignores Harry’s snort. “Nick, I know this is a terrible time, but if you remember anything…”

“Not much,” Nick says. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Harry says, before Louis can get a word out. “Can I touch you? I mean, sorry, that came out wrong. Just your hand.”

“You some sort of psychic?”

Harry grimaces. “Something like that,” he says.

“Go on, then.”

“Nick,” Louis starts. “You don’t have to—”

Harry turns on his heel, eyes flashing red for a split second. “I’m not going to hurt him,” he says quietly. “I might be able to pick something up. Let me do this.”

Louis frowns, but nods, and watches as Harry crosses to perch on the chair next to the bed and gently takes Nick’s hand in both of his, clearly avoiding disturbing the IVs. His brow furrows, and he closes his eyes. Louis has a feeling that if he opened them they’d be scarlet, and it makes him shift uneasily. Harry’s expression grows more and more pinched the longer he sits there.

One minute. Two.

Louis’ about to intervene—Nick seems fine, but that could be an illusion—when Harry lets go and exhales visibly before opening his eyes (clear green) and standing up. “Thank you,” he says to Nick.”

“No problem,” Nick mumbles, and his eyes slip shut. A few seconds later, he begins to snore.

“What did you do?” Louis hisses. “You said you weren’t going to hurt him.”

“I didn’t,” Harry grits out, still looking somewhat pained. “In fact, I think you’ll find that he’s in significantly less pain than he was when you came in. You’re welcome.”

“Did you find anything out?” Liam cuts in.

Harry’s mouth screws up in a crooked line. “Sort of,” he says slowly. “There are traces.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hard to explain,” Harry says. “It’s just...impressions.”

“I wanted to talk to him,” Louis says.

“He didn’t want to talk.”

“Oh, because you know him so well?”

“Louis,” Liam says.

“I know enough.” Harry’s expression is inscrutable. “She’s not here anymore,” he says, after a moment of tense silence. “The demon who did this.”

Louis could have figured as much. He frowns. “Where is she, then.”

“Don’t know.” Harry shrugs and looks out the window, which boasts a view of the whitewashed brick of the building next door.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Louis hisses, resisting the urge to grab Harry’s shoulder and make him look at him. _Touching to a minimum,_ he reminds himself.

“I mean _I don’t know,_ ” Harry says. “I’m not omniscient. That’s not how this works.”

“How does it work, then?”

“She went south. I think.”

“You think?” Louis has to make a real effort not to shout, especially as Harry continues in that same flat calm.

“Like I said, it’s just impressions.”

“Can’t you track her?”

“Not without a name,” Harry says.

Louis throws his hands up. “What _do_ you know?”

“She’s high level,” Harry says.

“She?”

Harry shrugs. “Gut feeling.”

Louis tilts his head. “Does that...like, does it work the same way?” _Useful information,_ he argues. _This is just research._

Harry scrunches up his face. “Not exactly. It’s more force of habit than anything.”

“So were you…” _Research. Need to know as much as possible._

“Male, yes.” Harry looks amused. “Why, would that change something?”

“Not exactly.” Louis fidgets. “Just curious.”

“For someone who hates demons, you’re quite inquisitive.”

 _It's just research._ “Know your enemy.”

Harry makes a slight movement, as if to turn around and look at Louis, but then he halts himself, and continues staring out the window. “Good strategy,” he says quietly. “She went south,” he repeats.

Right. “Oh. Do you know how far, or…?”

Harry shakes his head. “Far enough.”

“So we just head south, then?”

Harry nods. “Sorry I can’t be more helpful,” he murmurs.

“It’s okay,” Louis finds himself saying, struck again by the sudden urge to comfort the demon in front of him, slouched over and staring off into space. Something about the posture feels familiar in a way he can’t name. “Let’s get back to the car, okay?” he says, doing his best to keep his voice firm and neutral. “Can you really teleport us?”

Harry gives a tight smile and shakes his head slightly. “I could,” he says, “in theory, but I’ve never actually tried. I get bloody awful headaches doing it myself. The binding spell probably prevents it, anyway.”

“Well. That’s good,” Louis says.

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me,” Harry says. It should have the intonation of a joke or a jibe, but it comes out a little flat and sad, and Louis’ fingers twitch for a moment before he stands up and walks out of the room, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder and check that Harry’s following him. The spell made sure of that.

*

He ran away once, and only once, the first year he was with his birth father. It was just after his twelfth birthday, which Troy had been away for. Louis had walked down to the gas station nearby and got tinsel and a tiny, pathetic Christmas tree—something straight out of _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ , which he watched as the sky darkened outside and Troy still wasn’t back—and he decorated the motel room as much as he could, and then, when there was nothing left to hang up, he burrowed under one of the scratchy duvets and sobbed until his head was pounding and his eyes burned so badly he tried washing them out with water to soothe them.

A few hours before midnight, the phone on the bedside table rang, and Louis pulled himself out from under the covers to answer it. “Hello?” he said, trying to keep it from being obvious he’d been crying.

“Don’t talk to the staff unless you need to,” his father had told him. “Especially while I’m not here. If someone asks you where I am, I’m out getting gas, okay?”

“Okay,” he’d agreed, remembering earlier in the year when Troy’d had to come home from a hunt because Louis had accidentally mentioned to his teacher that he was living alone because his father was on a hunting trip and she’d talked to the principal and they’d called Troy in for a meeting with the principal and vice principal and guidance counselor and Louis’ teacher, and Troy had made it very clear later that night that he would not appreciate a repeat incident, lest Louis _wanted_ to go back into the system, which he could arrange. Louis had stumbled over himself to persuade him that that’s not what he wanted, not at all, and that he wouldn’t do it again. He hadn’t.

If he had calmed down and been rational, he would have accepted the call, listened to his father when he’d said he wasn’t going to be there until the day before New Year’s, said, “Yes sir,” and then gone about his usual business until Troy got back.

Instead, he’d only barely kept himself from sobbing aloud on the phone, and, after sitting in near-catatonia for ten minutes, stuffed the money he’d been left along with as many clothes as he could fit in his backpack and walked out the door and down the road until he reached the town itself and asked the first person he saw—a middle-aged woman who looked fairly frazzled but kind—where the bus station was.

“Where is your family?” she had asked, instead of answering his question.

“Already there,” he said quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets. He told her that his cell phone had died and he didn’t remember their number but they’d planned to meet there and he was fine, he really was, and when she gave him directions, sounding hesitant, he thanked her and walked away as fast as he could without looking too suspicious.

A ticket from Atlanta to New York was just under what he could afford, and would take two days, which was perfect, except that the man at the ticket counter furrowed his eyebrows at him and asked where his parents were, and Louis fumbled thinking of an answer, and they wouldn’t sell him a ticket unless he had a parent or guardian with him. He nodded, trying to keep the tears out of his eyes, and ducked back outside.

He knew hitchhiking was a bad idea—not just in the way that many things were now bad ideas since moving in with his dad, but a bad idea that every adult in his life had agreed on—but the thought of going back to the motel room, with its cheap tinsel and whining radiator, and waiting there until his birthday came and went, and then a week after that, was intolerable, and so he shuffled to the side of the road, took a deep breath, and stuck his thumb out.

*

He can smell sulfur all the way across the street from the Truckstop. It’s almost drowned out by acrid smoke, still rising from the blackened husk of the building. Some of the people walking around are wearing masks. There’s a fire truck parked outside.

Louis shuts his eyes and holds his breath, counting, _one, two, three, four, five,_ and concentrates on not coughing when he exhales. He can hear Harry and Liam talking behind him, but he’s not sure what they’re saying.

At this point, he reflects, he should probably be used to seeing the buildings that comprised his childhood burnt-out and smoking. Or maybe the problem is that he is, and that every other time is pushing its way into his brain when he takes a breath. There’s no mistaking this kind of air for anything else. Salted-and-burned bodies don’t smell like this, don’t make him bat an eye. He blames the way his eyes are red-hot, welling up, on the ash particles that must be hovering around them.

He doesn’t remember crossing the street, but all of a sudden he’s at the door—thrown off its hinges and half-eaten, black at the edges—and walking in, squeezing his eyes shut against the assault of smoke and debris. The sulfur is stronger here. He remembers throwing out a carton of eggs and his mom chiding him for it before he explained that they were rotten. His hand twitches towards his gun.

The stairs have caved in. He doesn’t remember opening the door to stand in front of them, but here he is. He could probably still make it up, he thinks. Most of the banister is intact. He can’t make himself move, though. It’s like he’s getting pushed from place to place; every time he loses focus he’s somewhere else.

A hand on his shoulder startles him so badly he feels like his heart stops, and he flails, elbow catching the _something_ in the chest. He’s got it pinned to the ground with its arms restrained before his vision comes back and he sees that it’s Harry, staring unblinkingly up at him with his brow a little furrowed. Louis’ got his knee digging hard into his solar plexus and both hands pinning his wrists. It’s a hold Harry could easily get out of, most likely.

He doesn’t. He stares at Louis for another moment, and then he says, quietly, “Are you okay?”

Louis isn’t sure what to say to that. He doesn’t move. The urge to cough is getting unbearable, and he’s fairly sure that if he tried to respond to that question, all that would come out would be hacking and spluttering, which would be an answer of its own, but not one he wants to give. He can’t think of one he does, so he stays silent and swallows against the way his throat feels like overly dry kindling.

He blinks again. He can feel his pulse jumping in his throat, and Harry isn’t under him anymore. He’s leaning against a charred wall, muttering and staring off into space. Louis follows his gaze; there’s nothing there but more of the same scorched framing and exposed pipes covered in soot. He clears his throat. “Find anything interesting?” he manages before coughing. He keeps it quiet.

“No,” Harry says, his voice slightly roughened, like it’s been rubbed over with coarse-grit sandpaper. “More of the same, mostly. She wasn’t here long.” He sounds like he wants to say something else, so Louis waits, but he doesn’t continue.

He remembers he should be counting his breaths when he gets like this, so he does. _One two three four five in, one two three four five out._ It forces more ash into his lungs, which makes them burn, which makes him remember, and he loses count over and over again.

Harry’s behind him. Louis hits him again. “Hey,” Harry says, “Let’s get you out of here, shall we? You smoke enough as it is.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You would,” he croaks. “You sound like my mom.” He doesn’t—Louis hadn’t started smoking until he was in high school, and he’d only imagined the way Jay would have cursed him out for it despite her own long-held habit. He’d pictured a big fight, and then a shared cigarette on the porch. It would’ve been summer. “A mom,” he corrects, when he remembers. “You sound like a mom.”

“You’re not the first person who’s told me that,” Harry says. “Are you—I mean…” Louis can hear the question he’s starting to ask without Harry saying it.

“She’s dead,” he says, quietly. He’s not sure why he does it, but Harry’s guiding him out of the building with the lightest touches to his lower back and hip, and Louis is letting him, trusting him to get him out safe. He feels like he can— _should—_ trust him with this. Maybe he’s crazy. Maybe it’s just the smoke inhalation and his brain is oxygen deprived. Maybe both. “A demon killed her,” he adds.

“The same demon?” Harry asks, like he already knows the answer. Louis nods. “I’m sorry,” Harry says. “That’s horrid.”

“It is what it is,” Louis murmurs, and squints when the door opens in front of him and he’s confronted with the cold grey light of an overcast sky. It looks like it’s going to rain.

*

They head south, stopping for the night near Eugene, but, “She’s gone underground,” Harry says. “Well, not literally, I don’t think. No sighting of the vessel?”

“Her name’s Stasha,” Louis snaps. He repositions a hex bag slightly in the corner of the motel room, near the groaning air conditioner. His thighs burn from crouching, but it’s nice to have his back against the wall and a complete view of the room—two queen beds, both empty, a loveseat, a desk and chair, and a closet with a door that won’t close.

“Sorry,” Harry says, like he means it. “No one’s seen her?” The way he’s lounging on the loveseat, limbs sprawled and hanging over the edge, makes something irritated stir in Louis’ gut. He looks away, towards where Liam is sitting at the tiny desk.

“Not that I can tell,” Liam says, frowning at his computer. “There’s a Facebook page now. It’s got a lot of people. Last sighting was in Portland still.”

Harry shifts. Louis looks away again, and adjusts the hex bag. “Have you tried contacting the family?”

“What use would that be?” Louis snaps. "Her parents and brother are dead." The friction when he stands up, back scraping up the wall, is painful, but he determinedly doesn’t wince, glaring at the demon sprawling on the couch like he belongs there, like he’s entitled to just spread himself all over Louis’ space and suggest that they go interrogate this poor family who've just lost three people and are missing another.

Harry holds his hands up, shifting to sit normally on one of the couch cushions, like Louis’ some kind of child throwing a tantrum. Louis glares harder; he hates people trying to pacify him, let alone demons. “It was just a suggestion. Aren't extended family looking for her?”

“Harry might be right,” Liam points out. “It's worth checking out.” He’s stopped typing and turned towards them, watching Louis warily, like he, too, thinks Louis’ some kind of volatile, wild animal, about to snap at any moment. It makes him want to scream.

He takes a deep breath through his nose. “It’s not up for negotiation,” Louis grits, teeth clenched, nails digging into his palms and probably leaving marks. “The only time we talk to her family is when we’re returning her to them.”

“But—”

“Not on the table, Liam.” He hopes no one detects the slight waver in his voice, the way he keeps swallowing. He turns to look at Harry. “Wasn’t the deal that you were supposed to use your powers for shit like this?’

“It is,” Harry says. He’s chewing on his lip. Louis wants to tell him to quit it, along with the way he’s hunched over his crossed legs. “But I’m not omnipotent. She went south, that’s all I can tell from what you’ve given me. Maybe if you actually _told me_ anything besides who’s currently possessed—”

Louis scoffs. “Yeah, okay.”

“He’s got a point,” Liam says. “A really good one, actually.” Louis glares at him, but Liam is looking at Harry, looking _to_ Harry, and that’s not how this is supposed to work; Harry’s not supposed to be _taking over,_ but Louis can feel control slipping away from him, like a rope that strips the skin from his palms as it inches out of his grasp.

Harry lets out an odd little huff of laughter, like he’s irritated, like Louis might be getting under his skin, too, which is some consolation. “It might shock you to know that I probably know more about demons than you,” he says, dragging his syllables out, mocking. Great. Now he’s being a wise-ass. “I might be able to figure out who it is if you tell me what you know. Otherwise I’m flying blind, here.”

Louis chews the inside of his cheek and rolls his eyes. “I thought the other demons didn’t talk to you,” he says, simpering and putting on an exaggerated pout. _Two can play at this game_ , he thinks. “Weren’t you whining about how you didn’t have any friends?”

“I’m not antisocial,” Harry says, “and I still hear things, I just stay above-ground most of the time. Better climate.” He pauses, looking at Louis like he’s trying to decipher him. “It’s personal for you,” he says. It’s a statement, not a question. “You don’t want to share any of the details, though. What are you afraid of?”

“It’s none of your business,” Louis snaps, looking at the carpet. _You have no idea,_ he thinks.

“We made a deal,” Harry says. “Of course it’s my business.” He can feel the prickling heat of Harry’s stare on him, but he can’t bring himself to make eye contact, knows that today has stripped him raw enough that Harry would see right through to the core of him, so he doesn’t say a word as he leaves the room, Liam calling after him, gets in the car, and drives until he feels like he can breathe. By the time he’s back in the lot and putting the Camaro in park, it’s close to three in the morning, and he doesn’t remember how long he’s been out or where. That should probably scare him, but he just feels tired.

He’s quiet as he slips into the room. Liam’s on one bed, and Harry’s on the couch, curled up small in a way that looks distinctly uncomfortable. Louis doesn’t know what to make of it, so he doesn’t think about it, or the fact that Harry probably heard him come in and is only feigning sleep. _Demon shit,_ he tells himself sternly. _Stop trying to figure him out. Stop thinking about it._ He falls back on the other bed, fully clothed, and stares at the spackled ceiling, trying not to think about anything at all. It’s hard work, and it takes him close to an hour to fall asleep.

He wakes up two hours after that, with a headache and a dry mouth and the sensation that something awful is going to happen imminently, but he doesn’t know what or when. He dumps a mini bottle of Jack Daniels in his instant coffee. It’s not enough to get him buzzed, but it helps, and he gets in the shower, which helps, too.

When he leaves the bathroom, Liam’s flitting around the room checking that they haven’t forgotten anything, and Harry’s sitting on Liam’s bed, munching on some kind of energy bar he got from the breakfast buffet, which Louis didn’t pay for.

Louis has the sudden thought that that’s the worst thing he’s seen Harry do. _Petty theft,_ he thinks, _real evil._ He shakes his head; he shouldn’t be thinking like that. He chalks it up to lack of sleep and hefts his bag over his shoulder.

“Shotgun,” Harry says, the second they’re outside the door of the motel room.

Liam’s struggling with his duffel, and he takes a moment to process. “Okay. Wait, no! No, no, no. Lou, back me up.”

Louis double-checks the trunk. Everything’s there, and where it should be. He dumps his bag and walks around the left side, settling into the driver’s seat.

“It’s the rules,” he hears Harry arguing. “First person within sight of the car.”

The Camaro jolts slightly; Liam must have set his bag down. “Louis!” Liam calls. There’s the slam of the trunk shutting, and then Liam’s at the window, looking thoroughly annoyed.

Louis fights the smile ticking at the corner of his mouth and shrugs. “Rules are rules, Payno. Get in the back.”

He grins widely as Liam curses and shuffles into the backseat. Winding Liam up is familiar, comforting.

A demon in his passenger seat isn’t.

“Can I do the radio?” Harry asks, after he buckles himself in and almost knocks a cup out of the holder with his elbow. _Bambi,_ Louis thinks. He turns the key in the ignition and adjusts the rearview mirror.

“Not a chance,” Liam says, from the back, at the same time as Louis says, “not a chance” while taking off the parking brake.

“Jinx!” Liam shouts, “jinx jinx jinx!”

Louis checks his side mirrors and the back windshield; there’s no one nearby, just a couple cars in the other corner of the lot. He cuts the wheel to the right and turns around to look at Liam. “How old are you?” he wonders. “Twelve? What happened to Agent Payne, FBI?”

Harry hushes him, which makes Louis bark out an involuntary laugh, and also kind of want to scream. “You can’t talk,” Harry says, and Louis hears him twist around to look at Liam, too. “What are you gonna make him do?”

Liam huffs. He’s gone pink, and he stumbles a little over his words when he talks, quickly like he does when he’s annoyed. “First off, Louis, if shotgun is sacred then so is jinx. And you can’t talk unless you agree to let Harry control the radio.” He grins, big-toothed and squinting, like he’s saying, _ha, ha, I got you good._

He might have; Louis will admit that. He ponders how long he could last in silence. Probably not long—he’s always been a bit of a blabbermouth, constantly getting sent to the office for talking too much in class. They were talking about screening him for ADHD or something at one point, but that got dropped when he switched districts after moving in with his dad, and he just took the detentions instead from then on out.

Sighing, he gestures at the console. “You win,” he grumbles, and begins to back up, maybe a little faster than necessary. It’s also possible he’s a little sudden in putting the car in drive and peeling out of the parking lot, making Liam squawk.

Harry seems unperturbed, and spends five full minutes clacking his way through the CDs. Louis’ taking a left turn when he puts one in, so he doesn’t see what he chose. If it’s the fucking Bublé mix Niall keeps stashing in here, he might crash the car. It’s probably what Liam was counting on. Louis contemplates slipping a bright red sock into Liam’s whites the next time they stop at a laundromat. He’d gone wild the last time, and the memory makes Louis smile.

There’s silence for a while, and then he hears a few haunting, familiar notes. It’s not Bublé, or any of the other shit Liam keeps trying to persuade Louis is _cool,_ not that Louis would know since he _doesn’t listen to anything released after 1999._

“Good choice,” Louis says lightly, as they pull onto the on-ramp and he steps on the accelerator. He loves these few seconds, always has, the vague terror of new speed.

“Oh, come on,” Liam groans. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you kidding me? You’re actually letting him DJ? What happened to _driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole?_ ”

Louis begins to answer, but then he hears Harry singing along quietly, s _tep out the front door like a ghost into a fog._ His voice is _good,_ a rich, raspy baritone that makes Louis’ breath catch and his words die in his throat, and he finds himself taking his eyes off the road to look to his right.

Harry’s looking back at him, and Louis flushes, looks away, and realizes he’s drifted almost out of his lane. He over-corrects, veering too far to the left, and his heart jumps into his throat before he manages to straighten out, and when the pounding in his ears fades, he can hear Harry singing about Maria, and he exhales, long, and joins in under his breath.

 _What am I doing,_ he thinks.

 _I don’t know,_ says the stereo.

*

“Mate, you’ve got to check this out. It’s absolutely sick,” Niall said, trying to prize the plastic wrap off a CD case that was reflecting the sun so brightly that Louis couldn’t look at it. “How d’you eject, c’mon—”

“No,” Louis heard himself say. “Leave it.”

He could hear Niall’s measured inhale, and knew a concerned statement was on its way. Sure enough: “Lou,” Niall said, unbearably gently (Louis would have preferred yelling, but Niall is difficult to infuriate enough that he actually starts shouting), “You’ve got to know that’s not healthy. It’s just a CD.”

“My car, my rules,” Louis said as firm as he could manage. “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

Niall sighed. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s not just that you won’t listen to anything except his CDs, you’re talking like him, too. You talk like him, but you won’t talk about him.”

“Nothing to talk about,” Louis gritted out, and pushed the play button hard enough to jam his finger, swearing under his breath. He turned the volume dial up until it was just shy of ear-splitting, so Niall had to shout and Louis couldn’t really hear him even if he did.

Niall surprised him, then, in his boldness—he shut it off, leaving Louis’ ears ringing and the air in the car thick and muggy and foreboding. Apparently Niall had gotten sick of waiting around for Louis and wanted to have this conversation now. Louis wondered if there was a way he could fling himself out of the moving car without killing Niall in the process. Maybe cruise control. Niall would have to react quickly.

_You gotta stay on your toes, y’hear me? In this job you live and die based on how and how fast you react. Kind of like driving, but without any airbags. You got that?_

_Understood, sir._

A hand was on his shoulder. He jumped, trying to shrug it off, and his right hand jerked on the wheel.

“Louis!”

A hand was over his on the wheel, keeping the car straight. Niall’s hand. Niall was talking to him, saying his name louder and louder. He winced and tried to move away from the noise, but that made Niall say his name louder and tighten his grip on Louis’ hands on the wheel, so he took a deep breath and forced his shoulders to lower from where they’d risen up to shield his neck and stared at the road ahead, watching the painted lines blur and converge on the horizon. The stereo stayed off.

*

They stop for lunch around two in the afternoon, when the sun is blazing hot. Liam orders some kind of salad-y thing with grains and an egg white omelet, mumbling something about protein, and when Louis stops rolling his eyes at him, he looks over at Harry and is met with a conspiratorial, miniscule head-shake. After Louis orders his burger, Harry gives their waitress, Cheryl, a 100-watt smile and says, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Cheryl giggles, and Liam does too. Louis sighs.

“Like that scene in—” Harry starts.

“ _When Harry Met Sally_ , yes, I know.” Louis looks up to the ceiling as if to say, _god help me._ “If your comparing me to Meg Ryan was intentional, Harold, I’ll lock you in the trunk the rest of the day. No chick flicks.”

“I find ‘chick flicks’ quite sexist, like, as a phrase,” Harry muses, face gone all serious except for the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, which Louis looks away from as soon as he realizes he’s staring at it. “Besides, you were the one who brought it up.”

Liam’s still giggling behind his hand, trying to take sips of his Pepsi.

“You’re more of a Sally than me, anyway,” Louis grumbles, and debates throwing something at Harry. Maybe a knife. Or he could put an ice cube down the back of his shirt. That could be fun.

“Au contraire, mon copain,” Harry drawls, donning a truly terrible French accent that manages to sound good ( _gravelly, sexy, dripping—god, shut up Louis)_ anyway. “Not that you’d know, since it’s a chick flick, but not only do Harry and I share a name; we also have the same dark side.”

Louis snorts and raises his eyebrows. “Oh? He buy souls too, then?”

A flicker of something crosses Harry’s face then, but it smooths out into lofty amusement. “No, not that,” he says, lilting and musical, “I read the last page of a book first.”

Louis blinks. “That’s your dark side?”

“Mhm,” Harry says, and takes a sip of his water, hollowing his cheeks. Louis has to look away. “What’s yours?” As if that’s a normal and appropriate question to ask when you are an undying creature of evil bound to someone whose life has been about keeping your species at bay. As if anything about this is normal.

“I never put the toothpaste cap back on,” he finds himself saying. “Even when I use Liam’s. Especially when I use Liam’s, actually.”

“Truly despicable,” Harry says. Over his shoulder, Louis can see Cheryl coming over with their orders. He smiles and thanks her when she sets them on the table, and gives her a wink for good measure. _Maybe you should just date girls,_ he thinks, quick and out of nowhere, and it makes him reel backwards slightly in the vinyl seat.

“Y’okay?” Liam touches his shoulder, and he resists the urge to flinch away from it. Deep breaths.

_You’ll find yourself a nice girl. Hey, she’s cute. That one over there is looking at you. Total ladies’ man, aren’t you? Good one, son. A clap on the back and a chortle and the clink of beer bottles together. To being a man._

He blinks. “Fine,” he says, and shoves his burger in his mouth. His first bite is larger than he can really handle, and he holds it in his mouth for a second before getting to work on it, but Liam’s still looking at him all concerned, and he can’t put a name to the look Harry’s giving him, except maybe _intense._ Intense _what,_ he doesn’t know.

Part of the mouthful done with, he’s frantically trying to think of something biting and witty to say that will cut the tension and keep this conversation tolerable. That’s what he does; it’s what he’s done as long as he can really remember.

Harry beats him to it.

“Mmmm,” he moans around his mouthful of burger, fluttering his long eyelashes. Louis’ heart jumps into his throat and lodges there, not indicating any plan to move any time soon. He can feel, literally _feel_ the harried way his blood rushes through his arteries to arterioles and into the capillaries in his cheeks as if it can’t get there fast enough to expose him. Thank god Harry’s eyes are closed. Liam’s aren’t—he registers that, but doesn’t know what to think about it, because Harry lets out another moan, from deep in his diaphragm, rattling and primal and _loud,_ and oh god, people are probably looking, people are looking and looking leads to staring and they’ll be staring at Louis getting _hot_ and _bothered_ by this demon sitting across from him, moaning around a burger like he’s getting fucked so well that he can’t keep himself quiet, and it’s _good_ moaning, it doesn’t sound fake. He adds little hitches of breath and hiccups and whines on the off-beats, and Louis is all of a sudden struck with the knowledge that Harry’s doing this from experience, that someone has put their hands on him and pulled these sounds—maybe not these precisely, but _sounds—_ from him, and Louis wants to tackle him like some kind of feral, crazed animal, staking a claim and growling at anyone who comes too near. He wants to put a bullet in the head of everyone who’s touched Harry who isn’t him. He really, really wants to touch Harry, so bad that he’s shaking and twitching. He can’t hear the shallowness of his breath or the frantic tattoo his heart is beating, vision swimming so that he can’t really even see Harry’s face, which would probably kill him.

He’s going to lose his fucking mind if this doesn’t end soon.

It does, though, with a little hum and the bob of Harry’s throat as he swallows, picking up his water and sipping from the straw so casual, except that he sucks hard enough to hollow his cheeks, and looks at Louis while he does it. There’s no smirk on his mouth but it’s there in his gaze; anyone could tell what Louis is thinking from looking at him, probably, but Harry does, and Louis feels cold fear twist deep in his gut at that.

 _Don’t fall for it,_ he reminds himself. _He’s playing you like a fucking fiddle, you moron._

The gulp of ice water Louis takes is enough of a shock to the system to get him most of the way back to reality. He downs half the glass, too, because he’s thirsty—he winces at the word—and sets it down a little too hard, but it’s plastic, so all that happens is he startles himself slightly.

“My _ass_ you’re not Meg Ryan,” he hears himself saying, high and too-fast, but to his left, Liam snorts, and when he looks over he can see tears in Liam’s eyes; he’s been shaking with silent laughter, folding in on himself with his elbows braced against the table.

His peripheral vision comes back in, and he remembers he can turn his head, so he does a sweep of the restaurant. Like he guessed, most of them are staring, including Cheryl, who seems to have been on her way over to give them the check.

He looks at Harry, then: his mouth is slightly open, a little reddened. There’s a smear of ketchup on his chin. Louis gets the urge to wipe it off him, and then remembers how irredeemably stupid that would be, and how he’s trying not to do irredeemably stupid things regarding Harry anymore. Then Harry swallows, and Louis contemplates the bob of his Adam’s apple and shifts in his seat, before he once more remembers that he’s supposed to be being not-stupid, and clears his throat.

“Thank you,” he calls to Cheryl, fishing two twenties out of his wallet and holding them out. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, sir, have a nice day, take care, drive safe,” she squeaks, and scurries away.

“Come on,” Harry groans, and he’s smiling now, so Louis chances meeting his gaze and finds it mostly mirthful, a self-satisfied twinkle to it, but there’s something else too that he can’t place. Maybe it’s a demon thing. Maybe Louis is just delusional. “You didn’t even say the line!”

Louis holds a finger up. “One,” he counts off, “Billy Crystal is not who says ‘I’ll have what she’s having.’ Two: you already fucking said it, don’t recycle jokes. Especially not bad ones. Three, shut up.”

Harry grins like a damn Cheshire cat. His two front teeth hang down quite a bit farther than the other ones, and they’re oddly shaped—like a rabbit. Louis should start calling him Bugs Bunny. Except he shouldn’t have a nickname for him at all, or be staring at his teeth. He forces himself to look back at Harry’s eyes and thinks he probably saw, judging by the slight narrowing and the amused glint in his gaze, but he just breathes out as Harry says, “So it seems like you _do_ like chick flicks after all.”

“Knowing ‘em doesn’t mean liking ‘em, Harold.”

“It’s just Harry.”

“Don’t interrupt me, _Harold._ As I was saying, just because something is familiar doesn’t mean you have to like it. I grew up with four sisters.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he thinks, _oh shit, I shouldn’t have said that._ It’s not even a _real_ excuse; Louis likes rom-coms, and maybe some of it comes from his mom, but mostly it’s just him, although _When Harry Met Sally_ is not his chick flick of choice. It’s _10 Things I Hate About You._ Not that he’s going to tell Harry that, or anyone else for that matter.

“Four?” Harry raises his eyebrows. The smile’s mostly gone, which Louis was hoping it wouldn’t be, because he didn’t want what he just let slip to register. Clearly, though, it has. “I only had the one.”

 _Had?_ Louis thinks, and, impulsively, wants to ask for the story behind that, but then he remembers that he shouldn’t care and he doesn’t want Harry to ask for his stories, either. They stand and exit in silence, and Liam calls shotgun the second they’re out the door. Louis rolls his eyes, both at Liam and at the way Harry immediately crosses his arms and pouts. He’s driving around a demon and a Fed; if Louis-a-year-ago could see him now, he’d probably hit him. If his dad saw him now—

“For the record,” Harry says lightly, starting to move towards the car, “my favorite chick flick is _Love Actually_.”

“ _10 Things I Hate About You_ ,” Louis blurts out, before he’s even asked, just like before, just like every other time he hasn’t been able to bite his tongue and has let bits of himself slip out, bits he can’t put back in.

*

“King or two queens?” The kid working the desk sounded bored out of his mind. Louis sympathized; he didn’t look much older than sixteen, and Louis suspected the run-down motel was probably the family business. He shared a look with Zayn, and dug one of his credit cards—an AmEx, this time, under the name Kurt Lanegan—out of his wallet to slide it across the counter.

“Two queens,” he said.

The kid looked up, glancing back and forth from Louis to Zayn, and snorted. “I’ll bet,” he muttered under his breath, smirking, and opened the reservation book. Louis blinked, took a deep breath, and let it out.

“What was that?” Zayn’s voice was cold, like Louis’ insides felt, and it was the tone he always got before he started some kind of fight that Louis was inevitably going to have to back him up in. Louis just wanted to get the room and go to sleep; he’d driven for 10 hours that day, and everything ached, and his shoulder still didn’t feel right from those demons in Des Moines. He wanted to go to bed.

“Nothing,” the kid said, still flipping through the reservation book. “Nothin’ at all.”

“Really? Because I heard—”

“Leave it, Z,” Louis said, and made himself smile. He considered patting Zayn’s shoulder, but that might escalate things. “We’re brothers,” he told the kid, who looked up with his eyebrows raised. “He’s just a little testy, aren’t you, little bro?”

The kid’s eyebrows were still raised. “Brothers,” he muttered, and wrote something down in the book. “Okay, then, whatever you say.”

Louis’ mouth felt dry, and he swallowed. “Half-brothers,” he said, unsure why he was going on about it. He’d told Zayn to leave it alone. _That was different,_ he thought. _Zayn was about to go on one of those_ so what if we were gay _rants in the middle of fucking—where are we? Nebraska. Somewhere in Nebraska._ “Same mom. Different dads.”

“Louis,” Zayn whispered, “Bro, stop it, okay?”

The kid was staring, now, and frowning. “Pa,” he called, turning around slightly in his chair. _So I was right,_ Louis thought vaguely, _family business._

The man who came out from the adjoining room was broad-shouldered, a tribal tattoo visible under his shirt sleeve and a reddish beard, flecked with gray. Louis took in all these details individually before he registered that the kid was saying something to his dad, and Zayn was saying something to him, and then the dad turned towards Louis and Zayn with a look of palpable disgust that juxtaposed his formal, polite tone when he said, “Gentlemen, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any vacancies. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

“The parking lot is empty,” Zayn began to argue, his accent becoming more pronounced as he raised his voice. The Georgia in him rarely made an appearance—Zayn had very little attachment to where he grew up, which was part of why he’d moved all the way across the country before Louis had met him—but when he was angry, he would start dropping his g’s and lengthening his vowels, and Louis would tease him for it after the fact, to which Zayn would point out that Louis went all _Joy-zee_ when he was mad sometimes, which Louis never really noticed but accepted was probably true. Take the kid out of Jersey, and all.

Louis snapped back to the present, blinking, and he could feel his heartbeat in his fingers. They needed to get out of here; the man’s face was getting redder, and he was beginning to clench and unclench his fists, but Zayn was still going on. Louis couldn’t process what he was saying. They needed to leave. He tugged on Zayn’s arm, muttering, “Come on, come on, let’s go, let’s get out of here, come on,” and began to back away, keeping his eyes fixed on the pair behind the counter, Zayn still going off, until the cold metal of the door handle dug into his middle back and he pushed it open, still not looking away.

Louis drove them twenty miles down the road and pulled off at a “scenic viewpoint.” They slept in the car; or rather, Zayn slept, and Louis lay with his eyes closed, listening to Zayn snore, with one hand on the grip of his .45.

*

Louis takes way too long brushing his teeth in the motel bathroom when they stop for the day, and he does try to put the cap back on, but there’s so much dried gunk clogging things up that he gives up. _It’s not a metaphor,_ he reminds himself, _you just need to learn to keep your damn trap shut, son._

He goes outside for a cigarette right after brushing, which defeats the whole purpose, but he’s not planning on going to a dentist any time soon unless one of his teeth is rotting (maybe not then, either) so no one’s going to scold him for it, probably. Liam might, but he’s busy with his laptop. Louis brings his dad’s journal with him, to once again look over the records Troy kept of where and when the demon surfaced and who it possessed, or killed, or both. There might be a pattern he just hasn’t seen yet, hasn’t looked the right way.

He leans against the hood of the Camaro, lights, and inhales, tipping his head back, away from the mostly empty parking lot and flickering streetlight being swarmed by every kind of bug. The sky’s a kind of muddy bluish-purple, like a bruise. He lets the first lungful out, and then opens the journal, careful not to ash on the pages. He mutters along under his breath. _June 25th, 1996, Wooster, Ohio, 5 dead including possessed._ Troy had gone on to document as many details as he could, pictures and newspaper clippings and the fire chief’s report on the cause (inconclusive). There are dozens of entries just like this one—except they’re not, and it’s maddening, the record of the carnage that hasn’t lead anywhere.

He turns the page and begins reading. _October 11th, 2007, Tallahassee, Florida, 3 dead, possessed in coma_ _~~1 2 3 4 5 6 7~~ _ _8 years._ The 8 is in Louis’ handwriting.

“Can we talk?” Harry asks, and Louis drops the cigarette he was nursing right into a puddle, where mosquitoes are probably breeding, and curses, turning towards Harry as quick as he can. He’s hovering in the doorway, arms and legs both crossed. His hair is lank and greasy—he could use a shower. So could Louis, come to think of it.

“Yeah?” Louis says, and shuts the journal, leaning through the open window of the Camaro to stow it in the glove compartment. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He should get new glasses. They’d broken last year and he’s never gotten around to going to the optometrist. It doesn’t really bother him unless he’s reading small print for a long time; even then, it doesn’t seem worth the time and money, really. “Y’wanna go inside?”

“No, thank you,” Harry says.

Louis nods; he’d rather be out here, too, despite how he’s probably going to get eaten alive by mosquitoes because he forgot the bug spray. The room was starting to feel like a cage to him, and he imagines Harry’s used to much greater freedom of movement than even he is. “Did something happen?” he asks, reaching for the pack of Marlboros in his jacket pocket. The smoke keeps bugs away.

“No,” Harry says, but he doesn’t sound convinced of it. When Louis gestures at the empty space on the hood next to him, he walks over and leans lightly against the car, crossing his arms and legs and positioning himself about as far away from Louis as he can be without hanging off the edge. Still, it's awfully close.

Louis swallows, and waggles the cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?”

Harry wrinkles his nose and doesn’t say anything.

“Too bad.” Louis’ already got it lit. The first drag silences the buzzing in his head, everything going blissfully quiet for a moment.

“You know,” Harry says, after a while, “I’ve been thinking quite a lot in the past few days.”

“Shocker,” Louis says, and tries to blow a smoke ring. Zayn was always good at them; he can never get the shape quite right.

“Shut up,” Harry whines, and there’s a laugh in it. “What was that book?” he says, lightly—too lightly.

Louis crosses his arms and feels his expression turn hard. “Not your business, is what it is,” he says. “That what you wanted to ask about?”

Harry sighs. It sounds tired. “I get that you don’t trust me as far as you can throw me,” he says, “but you gave me a job to do, and you need to let me do it.”

Louis frowns. “I am letting you.”

“You’re tolerating me,” Harry corrects. “There’s a difference.”

Louis scratches at the back of his left hand, where there’s a hard lump forming under the skin, itching something fierce. He should’ve bought bug spray. “Well what the fuck do you expect? What the fuck do you want from me, huh?” He scratches harder, and the bite splits open, stinging and bleeding, but he keeps scratching, staring at Harry.

“I don’t fucking _know,_ ” Harry says, wretchedly, like he might cry, and Louis can’t explain exactly how it happens, but they’re so close, all of a sudden, and he feels like he’s on fire, his whole body itching, and the next thing he knows is that half of him turns to ash when their mouths meet, a brutal thing.

“Can’t—fucking—stand—you,” Louis pants between fierce, biting kisses. It’s not even really a lie; he felt like he might die earlier, in the diner, and he feels like it again now, like any second he’s going to be struck by lightning and go down below, where he belongs, where Harry must be trying to drag him, and he was marked for damnation a long time ago, so _fuck it._

He crowds them up against the hood of the car until he’s sure the way he’s caught Harry’s legs between the metal and the press of Louis’ body must hurt, and then he pushes harder, holding them there. One hand snakes up to bury itself in Harry’s hair and tug. It’s rougher than Louis’ ever let himself be with another person. Something about the knowledge that Harry can take it—whatever Louis wants to give him— _does_ something to him that he can’t put a finger on, something that’s terrifying to think about for longer than a split second. So he doesn’t.

Not only can Harry take it, he seems to love it, letting out abortive little sighs when Louis jerks his head one way and practically melting back against the car even though Louis’ grip must be bruising. Louis pushes, and he bends. It’s not what kissing a demon should be like. Not that kissing a demon should be anything—not that kissing a demon is something Louis should be doing, but he is, only this time without the pretext of a deal. It doesn’t make sense, so he doesn’t think about it.

“Fuck,” he mumbles against Harry’s mouth, and bites, “you’re just—you’re so—”

It’s not _passivity,_ because Harry is enthusiastically returning the contact, and when Louis thinks about it he’s startled to feel the punishing way Harry’s gripping his shoulder, the way his other hand hooks around the back of his neck and pulls him in. Harry might not be directing the kiss, might not be exerting his control, but he’s not powerless. There’s something terrifying in the way he makes Louis forget, temporarily, that he’s as much in charge, if not more, than Louis is. There’s something confusing about how he’s letting Louis be in charge.

Louis isn’t thinking, so he can’t puzzle it out, but he knows he doesn’t like it. “Come _on,_ ” he groans, pushing harder. “Don’t just lie there.”

Harry shoves him back by the shoulders and holds him there, struggling, for a moment, before he pulls him back in and mutters, “You drive me fucking crazy.” Louis shivers pleasantly at the sound of his voice, like coal dragged through a mine shaft and up until it almost hits daylight, but not quite. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

Louis huffs a laugh and scrabbles his hand under the hem of Harry’s shirt to pinch at the meat of his hips. “Hypocrite.”

Harry starts to kiss his jaw. “Do you know what you want from me?”

“No,” Louis gasps, as Harry’s lips latch to his neck and his teeth begin working furiously over the skin. His own honesty is galling. “I don’t fucking know, are you happy?”

“No,” Harry says against Louis’ skin, still not letting up. The bruise he’s leaving is going to be violent and obvious. It’s as though Harry’s trying to mark him back in revenge for the sigils on his wrist and forearm.

“Good,” Louis says savagely, and pulls Harry away by the hair. “You make me so fucking—”

“You too.”

Without preamble, Louis shoves his hand under Harry’s waistband and cups him, drinking in the choked moan he receives in return. “I just need to get you out of my system,” he mumbles, grinding the heel of his hand down hard. Too hard, probably, but Harry humps up into it, loving it. “Ever since you fucking cockblocked me at that goddamn club—”

“Didn’t want you going home with him,” Harry gasps. “Wanted you to go home with me.”

“Yeah?” Louis stills for a moment and then doubles his pace. “That would’ve been fucking insane of me.”

“So would a lot of things,” Harry whines. “A lot of things you’ve done. You wanted me at that first crossroads.” He sounds nervous, but he’s right.

Louis swallows. “So did you,” he says viciously, tugging at the fine hairs at the nape of Harry’s neck and giving his throat a harsh suck. “That’s why you came, wasn’t it? You followed me?”

“Yes,” Harry admits. “Yes, yes yes yes.”

“Why?” Louis asks.

“I wanted you too.”

That knowledge bleeds through Louis, hot and incredible. “Not a great strategy to get me, was it? You could’ve just possessed someone else if you wanted in my pants that bad.”

Harry’s eyes are red when he pulls away from Louis’ neck. He looks small, which Louis can’t figure out. “I wouldn’t do that,” he says flatly, and visibly takes a steadying breath and closes his eyes. They’re still red when he opens them. Louis thinks about pointing it out, asking. “Wanted you to want me, admit you wanted me.”

“I fucking hate you,” Louis says. Somewhere along the line, his hand has stilled in Harry’s pants, and he resumes moving when he realizes. It’s less rigid and unyielding than he’d expected, which throws him off. Much like Harry.

“You don’t,” Harry says. “You hate my species.”

“Same thing,” Louis says, but he knows it’s a lie—at the very least not an absolute truth—as he’s saying it, and that’s new; it’s never felt like a lie, before. He’s too riled up to think about what it means. He’s not _thinking,_ that’s the _point._ It’s all sensation and gut knowledge and impulse and the wild, wanting part of Louis’ brain squealing in delight at being allowed to run freely.

“But you still want me,” Harry says. His hips grind in a steady, powerful rhythm, and one of his hands is trying to get Louis’ belt undone and not doing very well at it. He gives up and just slaps it lightly. “Off.”

Louis giggles. He shouldn’t be giggling, but he can’t help it. “Smooth,” he says, and gets it undone one-handed. “Can’t believe this undying creature of the underworld is confounded by a damn belt.”

“Hey,” Harry says, shoving one hand down the back of Louis’ jeans to grab at his ass.

Louis swallows a gasp. “Then again, your jeans are tight enough you probably don’t need one,” he muses. “Your poor balls.” He moves his hand lower to tease at them.

“They’re doing fine,” Harry says.

“Just fine?” Louis can’t get a good angle. His wrist is cramping something fierce. He can feel sweat beading on his forehead, upper lip, lower back.

“Just fine,” Harry says. “Mediocre. Nothing to write home about.”

“Show you mediocre,” Louis mumbles, and yanks his hand out of Harry’s pants, tugs the too-tight jeans down and licks his palm at the same time.

“Ah,” Harry breathes, when Louis grips him again, canting his hips forward. “Better,” he says. He’s clearly going for a lofty tone, but the hitch of his inhale betrays him. “Solid effort.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis says. “God, you’re a pain in my ass.” He knows it’s a mistake as soon as he says it, but part of him is pleased at the way Harry’s hand snakes back under his waistband and pinches a cheek, drifting closer to his crack.

God. He wants that. He really does. It’s—would it be too much? Would it be that much more than he’s already doing, making the nerves in his wrist sing with pain while jacking off the demon he’s made _three_ deals with, can sort of admit he might’ve made them in part because he wanted to kiss this mouth, wanted _this?_ Now that he has it, it doesn’t feel like enough. He wants more.

“Fuck me,” he breathes. He’ll ask, but he won’t beg. Not yet. Not even though he wants to.

“No,” Harry says, and Louis can’t help his whine. He might beg. “No,” Harry repeats, “I might hurt you. I can’t—fuck—”

“You can,” Louis says, pitch too high for his own liking, but he’s still not begging, not really. “C’mon, you can.”

“I _can’t,_ ” Harry groans. “But you can fuck me.”

“How’s that different?” It’s not unappealing, but Louis hasn’t been fucked in months, and topping never quite scratches the itch, the one he’s been feeling since before Harry showed up in that club and that’s been growing and growing since, reaching unbearable when he’s too near Harry’s big hands and pink lips and coiled, invisible power. He’s seen it come out to play a few times, but not like this, and he’s drooling with how much he wants it even as it makes his gut twist in self-hatred to know that he does.

“Less chance I’ll break your neck,” Harry says. “Would’ve thought you’d rather this way. You don’t like to be vulnerable.”

“Neither do you,” Louis bites back, but Harry’s right. He knows Harry’s right. It’s one of the core truths he knows about himself: he does not do vulnerability, or weakness, which are really the same thing. He’s learned.

“I’m _not_ vulnerable,” Harry says, but he doesn’t sound sure of himself.

“Seem pretty vulnerable right now,” Louis says, delighting in the hitch of breath he gets when he uses his teeth to tug on Harry’s earlobe right as he tightens his grip and twists so he can thumb at the crown. He should get them in the car, he thinks hazily. There are still bugs biting him. “And I thought you were on the run from big scary boss demon?”

“Less vulnerable,” Harry says. “God, can we not talk about my boss when your hand is in my pants?” His voice trembles; Louis chalks it up to him being close, and pumps harder. The noise he gets isn’t easily identifiable as pleasure or pain, but Louis figures they’re fucked up and entangled enough in his own head that it’s probably best not to think about it.

He keeps talking, mouth running automatically like a motor, spitting things out in a way he can’t seem to control. “I think that was a lie. I think you just wanted me to fuck you, so you made up some sob story so you wouldn’t seem like you were gagging for it, but I see through you. I see you.”

A mosquito whines beside his ear, and he startles, trying to slap it away. It distracts him for a moment from the wild, prickling need to move and push and take, and when he remembers, mouth gone dry with how much he wants, and goes to return to what he was doing, he realizes that Harry’s gone soft. Not all the way, but he’s only half hard at best. Half soft, depending on how you look at it. Louis is an optimist about these things. He’s a cock-half-hard kinda guy. Louis vaguely appreciates that his second order of business upon being able to form a thought again is to come up with dick idioms.

Harry’s tense against him, too, but his grip on Louis’ shoulders is missing. He’s moved his hands to brace himself on the hood of the car. Louis blinks. Why would Harry have done that? He moves in to kiss him and is taken aback by how Harry leans back further to shy away from him, how when he shifts the hand still buried in Harry’s pants his face goes tight instead of slack like it was, and his eyes are solid red, and even though he has no irises, no pupils, Louis can tell he’s not looking at him, staring instead off into the distance with that tight, scared look on his face.

“Hey,” he starts to say, “what’s going—”

“Hey!” There’s a booming shout from somewhere behind him, and quick as lightning Louis yanks his hand out of Harry’s pants to re-button his own and do up his belt and whirl around to get a visual on the threat, one hand automatically reaching for his glock. He feels a flush of cold fear when his fingers only scrabble at denim; he’d left it in the room.

There’s a man walking toward them. Louis doesn’t take his eyes off him as he takes a few steps around the car to the passenger side door, where he knows there’s a .22 in the glove compartment. It’s a safer bet than trying to get anything out of the trunk arsenal. He chances a glance at Harry, who’s still leaning back on the hood in the same position as before, although he seems to have gotten his pants up at least part of the way. He’s stock-still, every muscle rigid, and he’s not poised to attack or even to defend himself—he’s holding himself wide-open, almost like he’s playing dead. Louis can’t see his face. He makes a grab for the gun and stashes it behind his back in one fluid motion.

The man keeps walking, and Louis can’t see his face in the dim lighting of the parking lot, can’t see if his eyes are black. _He’s probably just some dude who objected to you humping a man in the parking lot,_ he thinks. _That’s a thing people object to, which is why you don’t do it. Why did you just do that? That was stupid._

“What’s goin’ on here?” He’s closer still, taking long strides. He’s maybe in his mid-50’s, wiry and suburban-looking, with frameless glasses and khaki pants and a sweater Louis can’t make out the print or color of. He still can’t see his eyes, and he grips the gun behind his back, his palm sweating slightly.

“Nothing,” he says, trying to keep his tone light and friendly. “Just changing the windshield wipers.”

A few paces away, he can make out the whites of the man’s eyes, and he exhales slightly, but adjusts his grip on the pistol. His eyes aren’t black now, but they could be. Demons are tricky. He almost starts laughing at that thought, at the sheer lunacy of this whole situation. Harry’s still fucking lying on the hood of the Camaro like some kind of deer shot and splayed out for skinning. Louis kicks his calf, keeping the rest of his body still, and Harry doesn’t move; if anything, he goes even stiller, even more firmly planted to the metal.

The man stops. His face is partially shadowed, but Louis can see enough of it to see him looking back and forth between them suspiciously before his eyes settle on Harry. “What’s wrong with him, huh?” he says, harshly, like he knows exactly what they were doing and he doesn’t like it. Louis’ had this conversation before. He knows how to play this.

“Look,” he starts, “We’re on our way. C’mon, Haz.” He jolts a little as the nickname comes out, unbidden, but he can’t focus on it for long. “Have a good night, sir.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” The hardness in his tone has shifted to outright malice, and Louis finds himself moving between him and Harry, who still hasn’t made a move.

“Come on, Harry,” Louis says, firmly, like an order. “We’re going inside now.” He grasps one of Harry’s arms—finely trembling, now that he can feel it—and yanks. Harry’s lighter than he would’ve thought, but there’s a lot of him, and when he stumbles he almost takes Louis down with him before he manages to right himself, swaying and shaking. “Now, Harry,” Louis barks, and when he tugs again, Harry follows him, sprinting the short distance to the door, where Louis fumbles with the key for a moment, looking over his shoulder to see the man walking towards them with those same long, precise strides, and he gets the door open and shoves Harry in ahead of him before following, the slam of the door almost deafening. He can hear his heart pounding as the deadbolt slots into place and he pulls the chain across, and then there’s silence. The adrenaline still coursing through him doesn’t know what to do; he tenses and untenses, eyes flicking around the room until they settle on Harry, on the floor with his arms around his knees and a thousand-yard stare.

“What the fuck was that?” he hears himself say, between heaving breaths. He hadn’t noticed he was gasping like that, before, or maybe he wasn’t. He makes himself slow down. _Inhale, one two three four five. You're fine. Exhale, one two three four five._

“What happened?” Liam’s saying from somewhere nearby. Louis’ gaze is locked on Harry, the way he’s rocking almost imperceptibly back and forth. Something in him wants to drop to the floor next to him and pull him into his arms until he stops looking like he’s going to break into pieces in front of him. _Yeah, well, part of you wanted to jerk him off in the parking lot, and look how that turned out. Stupid and reckless. You know what stupid and reckless get you? Dead._

 _I know that,_ he thinks, and then, _I’m sorry._

“I’m sorry,” Harry says quietly. Louis startles at the sound of it, quivering and awful. “Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry. I should’ve—I’m sorry, I just...froze.”

“I noticed,” Louis says, harsher than he means to, and then feels awful when Harry winces and holds himself tighter, cowering away slightly. He knows this stance; he’s just never been on this side of it, and he finds that he doesn’t like it, so, using the wall as support, he lowers himself to the floor. “What happened?” he says, trying to soften his tone. It doesn’t work well, but it works some.

Harry’s still not looking at him. He squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them, they’re red, but not like before—his irises are shockingly green and the redness is human, as is, Louis realizes with a pang, the wetness on his cheeks. He watches, unmoving, as Harry closes his eyes again and visibly collects himself before letting out a long, shaky breath. He’s never seen a demon cry before. He doesn’t like it. Specifically, some treacherous part of him thinks, he doesn’t like _Harry_ crying, and he’s not willing to examine what that means, not right now.

“That,” Harry starts, voice wobbling and a little wet, “was, em, a coworker. Of sorts.”

Louis inhales. It makes sense, and it’s weirdly a little relieving—he’s not sure what it means that he’d rather be almost attacked by a demon than almost gaybashed, but he figures it’s just another one of those things where his priorities are all fucked up and he’s forgetting everything he’s learned just because of a _feeling._

“That was quick,” he says, after a moment.

Harry laughs, but it’s hollow, and he sniffs at the end of it. “It was,” he says. “My fault, ‘m sorry, I should’ve done something, I was stupid, I wasn’t watching. He’s gone now, but I can leave, if you want. Um, break the deal, I mean.”

Louis blinks. “You just said a lot of things,” he says. “I don’t want to break the deal.” As he says it, he realizes it’s true. It’s the best chance he’s had in a long time, the best chance he’ll probably ever get, at finding the thing that destroyed his family, he rationalizes. It has nothing to do with all the incomprehensible, irrational things he feels. “Besides,” he says, trying for a joking tone, “you think some puny little demon’s too much for me to handle?”

The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches, revealing the shadow of a dimple for a split second before the skin smooths back out. “He’s not puny,” he says. “I mean, he’s lower-ranking than me, and I swear he’s gone, now, I can’t sense him at all, but—”

“Wasn’t talking about him,” Louis interrupts, and that gets what he thinks is a laugh from Harry, which goes some way toward unfurling the knot of tension in his gut. Their wards held, and when he chances a peek out the window, the demon is nowhere to be found. If it comes back, he can handle it. This is something he can handle. Concrete, with a clear enemy, a clear right and wrong. Simple, easy.

“Like you have any room to be calling anyone puny, Tommo,” Liam says.

“Fuck off,” he says automatically. “I’m gonna take a shower. Don’t open the door for any strangers. Or demons.”

“Good,” Liam says, “You stink.”

It’s easy as anything to jump on Liam’s back and shove his armpit in his face and then sprint into the bathroom, cackling. He keeps running in place as he turns on the shower and waits for it to heat up, too much extant energy for him to keep still; he feels like every part of him is vibrating on some low frequency, every muscle twitching and every nerve wide awake and standing to attention. He needs to ground himself, feel something that will drown everything out. He turns the temperature dial up and strips off his clothes mechanically.

He steps in once he’s got the water just shy of scalding, lets it beat down on him, one hand braced on the tiled wall, his head bowed and eyes closed, and he’s so simultaneously wired and exhausted that he can’t help—he really can’t, much as he tries to focus on the pain—the way his mind wanders back and back to Harry under him, Harry’s hands on him, his hands on Harry, and he barely touches himself at all before he’s whiting out, knees buckling with the force of it, the way his mind goes absolutely blank.

The water begins to cool after a while—he doesn’t know how long. It clears the fog from his brain, and as he comes back to himself, he thinks, in a voice that’s familiar but that he can’t put a name on, over and over, _what are you doing? What have you done? What are you going to do?_

He stands there until the spray’s gone ice cold and the pain of it drowns out his thoughts long enough for him to turn it off, get out, towel himself dry, and get in bed, shivering under the cheap microfiber duvet and pulling it up over his head like he used to when he was a kid and he’d thought there were monsters lurking in the dark. It had turned out, of course, that there were—that his mom had unknowingly been lying to him when she told him there was no such thing as monsters, and that nothing was going to get him—and since he learned that, bizarrely, the dark hasn’t scared him, but even though it quickly turns stifling under the blanket, he doesn’t dare look out until sunrise.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Thanks again for reading and your kind & helpful responses. It's Father's Day, and for those of you for whom this is a difficult holiday, I'm sending huge love. This chapter is kind of topical, in that sense, and deals more heavily with some of the things that have been talked about more obliquely in previous chapters. Special attention to the #past abuse and #bad dads tags, here. The sections that begin "Sometimes, when he's especially..." and "The first time..." both near the end, are particularly heavy.
> 
> Also warnings for: unhealthy sexual behavior, alcohol use, drug use (pot), violence, discussion of torture and abuse in Hell, death of parents and others, and some blood. If you need more detail on any of these, or a version without the particularly graphic sections, again, please feel free to let me know.
> 
> Huge thanks as always to Kate for straight-talk (ha, ha) and indispensable advice on this monster of a chapter.

About a month after Liam and Louis began hunting together, Louis began to get the itch. The job hadn’t gone well; the coven they’d been after were old, wise, tricky—people kept dying, and the hex bags they’d find at the scene never lead anywhere. Witches were among Louis’ least favorite kinds of jobs. Witches were human, and they did evil things because they _wanted_ to, not because it was programmed into their species, although enough sold their souls for their powers that Louis reasoned he wasn’t doing anything but bringing about the inevitable—and saving people in the process—by killing them. Still. Witches were the worst, and killing the last of the coven didn’t give Louis the satisfaction a completed hunt normally did, just left a bad taste in his mouth.

Liam was shaken, he could tell. He’d gone quiet and serious, all puppy-dog eyes that it made Louis’ skin crawl to look at. He knew he should’ve been offering some kind of comfort, but he wasn’t sure what to say.

“Wanna go get trashed?” he asked, instead.

A few drinks down, and the itch had grown; Liam was talking, but despite Louis’ valiant attempts, he was having difficulty paying attention.

“It’s not like I haven’t killed anyone,” Liam was saying, “I don’t know, maybe it was the badge, or, I don’t know, I feel like I keep waiting for confirmation I was allowed to, but—”

“You were allowed,” Louis said, and tipped his bottle back to polish off the last of his Heineken. “You’ll get used to it.” There was a guy on the other end of the bar he’d caught looking at him a few times, and they locked eyes again. Louis cocked an eyebrow and turned back to Liam, who was wringing his hands in a way Louis tried not to find annoying. He’d been a wreck when he’d first started, too.

 _Then again,_ he thought, _you were a kid and not a grown-ass man with an FBI career,_ but he quickly shut that down and tried to listen to Liam over the buzzing in his ears.

“This is for you,” the bartender said, setting another Heineken in front of Louis. He jerked a thumb at the man down the bar. “From him,” he added, and then walked away. Louis looked at the bottle, the beads of condensation and the green of the glass. If he were in a different mood, he might be irritated that this guy had decided he’d only been worth a cheap beer—nevermind that it was what Louis was already drinking, and therefore a good bet—but as it was, he felt the itch swell and become more insistent than ever, and he took a long drink before turning back to Liam.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he said, and clapped Liam on the shoulder a little harder than he’d meant to. “You’re okay. You did good.” He racked his brains for a moment, trying to think if there was anything his father had said to him that had helped when he was this kind of upset, but that had been about it. _You’re okay. You did good, kid._

“Oh,” Liam said, “Oh, okay. Um. I’ll be here.”

Louis nodded, and crossed the room as fast as he could without looking too weird, not that he particularly cared, he just wanted that feeling to go away, to scratch it—

Sure enough, when he shouldered his way into the handicapped stall, the guy was there, and before Louis knew it, he was hoisted against a sticky wall and there was mouth sucking at his neck, and he was making noises he was only vaguely aware of while scrabbling his hands over everything he could reach: the wall behind him, the guy’s hair, the thick fabric of his shirt, rough denim over his hips. _Yes yes yes_ , he chanted, _yes, yes, this_ , and he relished the dull, cold pain of his knees hitting the floor, and the cloying smell of it, and the heat in his face, thinking, _yes, yes, yes, this is what I need_.

“Oh...um, god, sorry, sorry,” someone said, and Louis felt the sudden emptiness of his mouth, felt himself falling face-first towards the wall, just barely catching himself in time. Of course the nervous, babbling voice belonged to Liam, and of course he had come looking for Louis when he hadn’t come back out, and of course the lock on the stall had been broken, and of course the guy had taken a few steps back, his hands up and a sour expression on his face.

“I’m not trying to get in the middle of anyone’s boyfriend drama,” he said, and made his exit quickly enough that Louis couldn’t find his tongue in time to explain. Not that he really wanted to, but losing his words always frustrated him, and now that he’d gone some way towards scratching the itch and then stopped, it came roaring back, like a mess of bug bites all over his body, nerves singing in protest.

“I’m so sorry,” Liam was saying, over and over, wringing his hands and shifting his weight back and forth as, Louis stood up, somewhat awkwardly—his calves and feet were asleep, and his knees ached—wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and thinking, _shit_. “I’m sorry,” Liam kept saying, “I was just worried, wanted to check that you were okay—”

“I’m fine,” Louis said, finally locating his vocal chords. The sound they produced was a little roughened, in a way he would’ve passed off as an oncoming cold had Liam not just walked in on him getting his face fucked, which, as a rule, Louis found very rude, but it was what he had wanted, and he’d had it, and then Liam had come in and fucked it up. “Sorry you saw that,” he said, jaw tight and sore. “Can we just forget about it?”

“What?” Liam’s eyes were wide as saucers, and he was blocking the exit. There was no one else in the bathroom, thank god, but Louis didn’t want to be having this conversation here, not that he wanted to be having it at all. “No, it’s fine, really, I’m sorry for interrupting, I was just worried something had happened, I don’t, um, have a problem with it, it’s fine, I mean—”

“It’s fine,” Louis cut him off. “My bad, shoulda told you I wouldn’t be out for a while.”

“Yeah,” Liam agreed, sounding relieved, “honestly, I was just surprised, I just didn’t ever think, y’know, um, I didn’t know—”

“What, the cocksucking thing?” Louis winced as the words scraped out of his throat, out of some recess of his brain he didn’t normally venture anywhere near. “No big deal. I understand if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t!” Liam hurried to say, and then, “Or, well, I guess a little, but just ‘cause it was a surprise, like, I’m not homophobic, it’s cool, I just didn’t expect it, ‘cause like, I wouldn’t have thought, you know, you’re so…”

 _So what?_ Louis wanted to ask, but kept his mouth shut, something in him gratified that Liam hadn’t picked up on anything the way everyone else seemed to. But, as he was realizing more and more, for all his detective training and research skills, Liam could be incredibly obtuse, and so it probably wasn’t that Louis had gotten any better at seeming straight—he hadn’t really been working on it, not anymore, not consciously—and just that apparently, even though he’d been after Louis for years, Liam had never considered the possibility until confronted with hard ( _ha, ha_ ) evidence. _Just like_ —

He shut the thought off, squeezing his eyes closed and taking a deep breath through his nose. “Well,” he said, “surprise.”

*

The morning after The Incident with Harry in the Parking Lot, as Louis’ decided to call it—The Incident for short—Harry tries to blow him in a gas station bathroom. Louis sort of freaks out.

How it goes is: they don’t say anything to each other in the morning. Liam fills the silence with nervous babbling, as he’s prone to doing, and Louis chatters back, grateful for the noise. Harry mostly just slinks around the edges and corners of the room, like he’s trying not to be seen. It sets Louis’ teeth on edge, and he almost snaps, except that if he says one thing to Harry, he’s afraid he’s going to say everything, won’t be able to stop the torrent of things he wants to say from spilling out of his mouth.

So he just keeps an eye on him, observes the peculiar-even-for-a-demon sneakiness, and insults Liam while they pack the bags and put them in the car.

Harry’s silent as they approach the Camaro, and slides into the backseat without protest. Liam stares at him and opens his mouth as if he’s going to point it out, but he doesn’t.

“You’re gonna catch flies,” Louis says, and buckles his seatbelt. “Hungry?”

“Yeah, actually, starving,” says Liam, and Louis thinks he sees Harry nod in the rearview.

“We’ll stop somewhere on the road,” Louis says, putting the car in gear. “Wanna hightail it outta here after last night.”

“Good call,” Liam says, nodding his head. “Niall’s?”

“Where else?” Louis smiles tightly and glances in the rearview mirror. Harry’s staring out the window.

“I’ll text him. Harry, still no lead?” Liam says over his shoulder. He’s met with silence. “Harry?”

“No,” Harry says, dull and flat, just as Louis feels himself about to snap at him to fucking _say something, Jesus_. He finds he’s glad he didn’t, wincing reflexively at the idea of yelling at Harry after last night. That was unsettling on a bone-deep level that he’s not thinking about right now. _Later_ , he tells himself. _When you have some time_.

Louis turns the stereo on and lets _Sparkle and Fade_ restart, and no one says anything until it’s over and Louis hits replay.

“Lou,” Liam says, over the echoing opening chords of “Electra Made Me Blind,” “we gonna stop anytime soon?”

Shit. Right. He checks the fuel gauge; they’re close to running on fumes. “Next exit,” he says, and is careful to keep his foot steady and still on the accelerator. “Gotta get gas, too.”

The next exit is in two miles, and there’s a Shell station, and regular is $2.25, and Louis lets himself be happy about all of these, whistling slightly as he grabs the nozzle and opens the Camaro’s fuel door.

Liam exits the store with a plastic bag in hand and a Pop-Tart sticking out of his mouth, which makes Louis smirk as he waves him over. “Look after that, would you?” he says, gesturing to the pump. “I’m gonna take a leak. Don’t blow anything up, I’ll kill you.”

“Wouldn’t I already be dead?” Liam says, muffled around the pastry. “How would you kill me?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Louis says darkly, and then takes off, because he really, _really_ has to pee. Harry must still be in the store; Louis would insist on staying with him, but after last night he’s loathe to be alone with him (even in public, because god knows The Incident demonstrates the complete and utter lack of self-control Louis has, here), and besides, how much trouble could he _really_ get up to?

A lot, actually. He’ll make this quick.

When he turns around to wash his hands, whistling quietly, Harry’s in the bathroom with him, standing a couple feet from the door with his hands behind his back and head slightly bowed.

“Hey,” Louis starts, a little harshly—he’s sure he locked the door, which means Harry must have broken in. “What’s up?” He reaches for a paper towel, but the dispenser’s empty, so he just frowns and wipes his hands on his jeans, bent over slightly and trying to ignore the dank smell of the room.

For a long time, Harry doesn’t reply, arms looped behind his back like they’re bound there, practically vibrating from tension. Louis debates taking the few steps he would need to to put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, or nudge his chin up to study his face, or any of the myriad things he’d yearned so sharply and bizarrely to do last night, when Harry was so distraught. Last night, Harry had been crying, though, and when Harry looks up,  his face is impassive and sallow, sickly-looking in the bright green bathroom. His eyes don’t meet Louis’.

“Hey,” Louis says, tone gentling, “you feeling okay?” He ignores the pounding of his own heart, the seizing anxiety that rhythmically contracts and releases in time with it. Harry probably wants to talk about The Incident, which Louis has less than no desire to do, and he steels himself for Harry to tell him he’s leaving, he’s reconsidered and is breaking their contract, going to find some other hunter who can keep it in their pants. Belatedly, he realizes he should probably also brace himself for the possibility that Harry’s come in here to kill or maim him.

Before he has time to think about what it means that he went to _Harry leaving_ first, Harry screws up his face, looking determined, and takes four long steps that bring him right in front of Louis, where he suddenly, violently, drops to his knees. When his hands come up to fumble with Louis’ belt buckle, Louis’ brain catches up to what’s happening, and he freezes where he stands against the wall, heart rabbiting like it’s trying to get out of his body, hands slipping and scrabbling for purchase on the tile.

 _This is what you wanted, isn’t it?_ a part of him says, making him suddenly very aware of the frantic rushing of blood to his groin as Harry works a broad palm over the front of his jeans before going for the button. _See,_ it says, _look, you’re gagging for it. Just let it happen._ It’s tempting, but when he closes his eyes to try and relax into it, he’s overcome with a feeling of _wrongness_ that wasn’t there last night—or, for that matter, in most of the hookups Louis’ had in rooms just like this one, across the country, so much the same everywhere that they become nowhere—and he opens his eyes, looks down.

The look on Harry’s face—ashen, empty and yet resolute—makes his heart leap into his throat and any arousal that had been building immediately flee, replaced by a sensation Louis doesn’t know how to name but which is unbearable, and without thinking, he grips Harry by the hair and tugs him away, breathing harshly.

“What—” he starts to say, but _what are you doing_ is a dumb question. _Why_ is the question he wants to ask, but he’s not sure he wants to know the answer, not when Harry’s expression goes abruptly stricken and, then, like it’s being painted over, changes to fearful, and then to resigned: eyes closing and broad shoulders slumping as his body goes lax and pliant, surrendering to Louis’ hold.

Louis releases him like he’s been burned, does up his pants and belt as quickly as he can, and bolts.

“Can you find a job?” he asks Liam the minute he’s in the car. “I don’t really care what it is, I just want to…” _Kill something_ isn’t it, but it isn’t _not_ it. _Save someone_ sounds sentimental and hokey. _Fix something._ That’s as close as he can get. He wants to find a problem he can fix and fix it and be done with it.

“Actually,” Liam says, “I was just going to ask, there might be this thing in Bend—”

“Perfect,” Louis says. He drums on the steering wheel.

“I didn’t say what it was,” Liam grouches.

“Tell me on the way.”

“Where’s Harry?”

“Bathroom,” Louis says shortly, and he sees the white door swing open and a gangly figure walk out. “There he is.”

“Is he okay?” Liam asks, quietly, as if Harry can hear them. Maybe he can, but he doesn’t look up or slow his stride. “He’s been acting funny.”

Louis shrugs. “Demons,” he says, with less confidence than he means to. Liam frowns as if to argue, but it doesn’t matter, because Harry’s opening the back door and clambering in, saying in his usual bizarre voice, “Sorry, didn’t mean to take so long. Got a bit distracted by the graffiti.” He’s still pale; Louis watches him in the rearview mirror, blatantly, barely makes an effort to be surreptitious, and when their gazes lock he holds the eye contact for half a second before looking away.

“Anything interesting?” Liam asks.

“Not particularly,” Harry says. “There was one rather detailed etching of a penis. I admire the artist’s dedication to his craft.”

Liam laughs, and Louis begins to back out of the space. “So,” Liam says, “this thing in Bend seems like a pretty routine haunting, from what I can tell. Lots of weird activity in the house, the mother’s made a few police reports about intruders, but they’ve never gotten anywhere, y’know, things being thrown around in the middle of the night but nothing stolen and no signs of forced entry, blah blah blah.”

“Sounds simple,” Louis says. _Easy. Simple. Easy. Simple._ He repeats it until the words stop sounding like words at all, and drives east.

*

Louis seizes automatically with alarm when Harry approaches the sniffling girl—it’s an ingrained reaction, _demon near child danger danger danger_. His hand drifts toward the vial of holy water he’s taken to keeping in his pocket. Harry hasn’t tried anything yet, but that doesn’t mean he won’t, and this girl almost lost her mother, who’s still unconscious. The girl’s eyes keep darting over to her, probably checking that she’s still alive. Definitely, actually; Louis had had to press her pudgy fingers into the side of Cathy’s neck and hold them there over the weak but very present pulse for several minutes before her wails became hiccups and she was still enough that Louis could carefully bandage the scrape on her forearm.

He watches warily as Harry crouches down to the girl’s height—Louis will have to get her name, once she’s calmed enough—and says, “Hello, love.” His voice is low and sweet and Louis finds himself slightly soothed by the sound. “What’s your name?”

The girl looks him over for a few moments before apparently deciding he’s trustworthy—Louis’ fingers twitch involuntarily towards the holy water again—and she seems to visibly collect herself, scrubbing under her eyes. She hiccups the first time she tries to speak and looks like she might cry again.

Harry must do something funny with his face, then, because her frown vanishes and she giggles, bringing one fist to her mouth shyly. Louis can’t hear what she’s saying from his vantage point, but he’s not all that keen on alerting Harry to his presence, instead hanging back to observe and feeling strangely guilty about it. He tries not to think of him lying prone and still on the hood of the car, or shaking on the motel carpet, or on his knees in the bathroom, and reminds himself that Harry could snap his neck without breaking a sweat, even if he had insisted a few days ago on cupping that spider in his big palms and taking it outside to release instead of killing it like a normal person, let alone a normal demon.

“Hi, Olivia,” Harry says. His accent adds an r to the end. “You were so brave. How are you feeling?”

Olivia mumbles something into her hand, and shuffles forward; Harry puts his arms around her, and Louis tenses, shifting his weight forward and onto the balls of his feet; at a sudden motion, he uncaps the holy water and starts to take a step, but falls back when he hears Olivia squeal happily as Harry hoists her onto his hip, nudging his index and middle finger around her nose and then showing them to her with his thumb tucked in between. “Got your nose,” he sing-songs, and makes a show of pretending to gobble it up as Olivia laughs and snatches for his hand.

“Give it back,” she giggles.

“Sorry,” Harry drawls, “’m afraid it’s already in my tummy. You’ll just have to wait until it comes out the other end.”

“Ew!” she shrieks, and Harry hooks his hands under her arms and twirls her around. Louis doesn’t move out of sight quick enough; he locks gazes with Harry and sees the way Harry’s eyes move to the holy water he’s clutching. Louis’ expecting anger, maybe a scathing comment, but Harry’s brows just knit together slightly and he lets out a little sigh, turning around and setting Olivia back on his hip.

Suddenly, irrationally ashamed, Louis re-caps the holy water and replaces it in his pocket. Liam’s sitting with the mother; Louis joins him, gets an update on her injuries—she’s fine, apparently, and had woken up long enough for Liam to confirm she wasn’t concussed, just needed rest. Possession takes it out of you.

“Harry really saved our asses, didn’t he?” Liam murmurs. “Coming in handy, just like I told you.”

Louis bristles for a second, and then deflates. Liam’s right; they would have been pretty fucked, having come into the hunt assuming the nightly terror in the house was a ghost or a poltergeist and not the demon possessing Cathy deciding to be tricky and only take over once its host was asleep. Even if they had been prepared, as often as not the fight gets so messy that when the demon leaves, the host’s injuries are too severe for them to withstand on their own, and Louis’ left with blood on his hands—literally—and the overwhelming desire to drink until he can’t see anything.

Harry, though, was apparently enough above the demon possessing Cathy’s paygrade to be able to freeze it in place without the aid of a devil’s trap and force it to drop the kitchen knife it was holding while Liam and Louis performed a relatively straightforward exorcism. Harry hadn’t said a word the whole time, just stood against the wall and stared, eyes flaming red and unblinking. The sight had sent shivers down Louis’ spine every time he’d chanced a look over his shoulder, and it makes him shiver again to remember.

It’s impossible to reconcile the Harry he’d just seen comforting a traumatized child with the Harry who wasn’t even a person, just an overwhelming, terrifyingly powerful supernatural force capable of holding demons in place with his mind, and then with the Harry he’s seen glimpses of, the one who seems frightened and absent, like a trapped animal. Louis can’t wrap his head around it or parse the feeling that courses through his body when he tries; the best way he can describe it is that he feels like all his blood is suddenly pumping backwards, upsetting the order of things but in a way only he can feel, pulsing wrong under his skin and destabilizing him even all of his organs continue to function as usual. And that’s without thinking about The Incident with Harry in the Parking Lot, which Louis has been studiously avoiding.

It’s hard work, avoiding a thought that wants to be acknowledged, and Louis spends some time occupied by it, thumbing at a small cut on his bicep and looking at the floor. He looks up when, after a while, Harry and Olivia enter, the latter asleep with her head lolling on Harry’s shoulder and his free hand supporting her neck.

“She’s exhausted.” Harry looks directly at Liam. “I’m going to put her in her bed. Cathy’s alright?” Liam nods. “C’mon, then, duck,” he says gently. “Let’s get you up, and then I’ll bring your mummy up too.” Olivia shifts and mumbles something. Harry kisses the top of her head. A sharp pang of something cold and awful runs through Louis, stunning him. He looks away; it feels private.

Harry reappears a minute later, lifting Cathy like she weighs nothing, careful not to jostle her wrist, and carries her up the stairs. Louis fidgets, unsure of what to do. Normally he covers this part. Harry’s good at it, is the thing, which Louis doesn’t know how he feels about—wouldn’t even know where to begin putting words to—so he defaults to wariness, suspicion: useful feelings, feelings that keep him alert to bad things so he can be ready to react to them, feelings that keep him and people around him alive.

Unease builds in his gut the longer Harry doesn’t come downstairs, and after exchanging a slight nod with Liam, he makes his way up, trying to avoid the creaking boards so Harry doesn’t hear him coming. He doesn’t manage; within a matter of seconds, Harry appears on the landing. The bags under his eyes are pronounced and bruised purple. Something twinges in Louis’ chest.

“They’re safe in bed, if you want to check,” Harry says, frowning lightly. He shakes out his hair and rocks a little back and forth on his feet. He’s got blood—Louis’, most likely—staining the toe of one brown boot.

Sure enough, when Louis checks, mother and daughter are sleeping next to each other, a light blanket draped over them.

“Okay,” he says, once he’s back on the landing. “Um.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Thanks.” He doesn’t elaborate, and hopes Harry won’t ask him to.

“You’re welcome,” Harry murmurs. “They’re a lovely family.”

“They are,” Louis agrees, holding in the questions that are on the tip of his tongue, burning the roof of his mouth. He’s bone-deep exhausted, now that the adrenaline’s gone, and wants nothing more than a bed of his own, any bed. A shitty motel mattress that hurts his back sounds like a miracle.

“I’m going to go back to the car,” Harry says, abruptly.

“Okay.” Louis can’t think of anything else to say, and it doesn’t matter, because Harry’s gone a second later, and Louis thumbs at the cut on his arm again; it’s beginning to scab over and itch.

*

From Bend, it’s just shy of five hours’ drive back to Niall’s. Some of it will be in the dark, but Louis’ eager not to repeat last night—God, had it only been one day? It seemed like an eternity—and, worst comes to worst, he’ll let Liam drive some of it. He’s not planning on talking to Harry, or thinking about Harry. Realistically, he knows that’s probably not going to happen, but he’s going to avoid it as best he can.

Liam has other plans, though, and the second they’re on the highway he’s twisting around in his seat to look at Harry and saying, “Thanks for that, man.”

“No problem,” Harry says, sounding a little surprised. Louis doesn’t look at him, keeps his eyes on the road. There’s a long pause, and then Harry speaks again. “For the record, _that_ was what I call a puny demon.”

It’s a peace offering. Louis can hear that clear as a bell, and much as he wants to roll his eyes at the tentative hopefulness in Harry’s voice, he finds himself thinking about the way he was holding that girl, making her laugh and feel safe enough to fall asleep in his arms. If she can extend that level of trust—Louis has a firm belief in children’s intuition—then Louis could at the very least have a conversation with him; maybe, just maybe, he could work to try and understand him as an individual and not a species, as an ally and not an enemy. Maybe.

“If you’re trying to impress me,” he says, letting the corner of his mouth pull up into a half-smile, “it’s not going to work.”

“Think it already has,” Liam says, and Louis throws the nearest object he can get his hands on at his head—Coke bottle, as it turns out—and lets himself be warmed by the laughter from the backseat.

*

“Jesus, don’t you lot look like a bunch of manky cats,” Niall says, the moment he opens the door. “Come in, Christ, it’s pouring. D’youse not have a brolley among you?”

“Don’t need one,” Louis says, trying to keep his teeth from clacking. It’s _summer_ , for god’s sake; summer storms aren’t supposed to be cold like this. Louis’ never going to get used to the weather out West. “It’s just drizzling.”

Niall barks out a laugh and moves to usher them inside. “I’ll go find you some clothes,” he says, and moves toward the stairs with a limp that’s much more pronounced than the last time Louis saw him, just days ago.

“Niall,” Liam starts, “are you alright?”

“Just the weather,” Niall says, beginning to make his way slowly upward. “They get all odd when it rains, is all. On the bright side, no need to watch the eejit of a weatherman they’ve got on here. Dead useful, really.” He laughs, and it only sounds a little strained, but he places his cane wrong on the next step and stumbles.

Liam and Harry simultaneously rush forward; Niall waves them off, a tinge of genuine annoyance creeping into his tone as he says, “I’m fine, I’m fine, just going to get some dry clothes for you lot. It’s a good thing you keep leaving all your shite here, aye?” He looks at Louis.

Louis smiles, and nods at him. “That’s enough out of you, gimpy.”

“Best watch your tone, Lou, I just got my delivery from Mountain High.”

Louis puts his hands up. “I’m sorry! You’re my very favorite person in the whole entire world, Nialler, the absolute best. Glory be to you, or whatever.”

“Gloria Patri,” Niall calls back, out of sight. “Et filium, et spiritum sanctum, you heathen. Get your arses in the shower and then we’ll talk.”

*

Louis met Niall when he was nineteen and they were both trying to question the same witness on a case in Boise. The woman had opened the door, frowned, and said, “Are you Father James’ coworker? He’s already here.” She looked him up and down. “You’re both pretty young to be priests. What, you join the seminary instead of going to high school?”

Louis smiled, trying not to fidget with the Bible he was carrying. “Something like that. I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am. May I come inside?”

She stood aside. “Go on ahead,” she said, with an air of weariness Louis was well used to. “Half the damn town’s been in here—sorry, Father, please forgive me. It’s a difficult time.”

“I can only imagine,” he said, stepping across the threshold. He wondered if he should cross himself; he’d never asked. The priest garb was uncomfortable, too large on him. “Have the police found out anything about the circumstances of your husband’s death?”

“Nothing new,” she said, walking briskly in front of Louis and talking over her shoulder. “Just asking me if he had any enemies, you know.”

“Did he?” Louis asked.

“No,” she said, “just like I told your...brother, or whatever. Father?” She called up the stairs, and Louis heard footsteps first, before skinny legs, clad in black trousers, came into view, followed by a torso, and then a priest’s collar, and then a face, boyish and bright and topped with a shock of bleached-blonde hair.

“Yes, my child?” he said, in a strong Irish accent. Louis frowned. Was that fake? What was the point of it? His gaze—bright blue—flickered to Louis, and he let his mouth hang open for a moment, panic in his gaze.

“Father,” Louis said, doing his best to sound familiar and priest-like. “What a surprise, to see you here. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

The boy on the stairs blinked. “He does,” he said, in that same brogue. “That he does. The Lord be with you.”

“And also with you,” Louis said, bowing his head slightly. It felt like the right thing to do. “May I have a word with you outside, Father? If you have a moment, of course. I need some...spiritual advice.”

The boy’s eyes widened momentarily, and then he said, “Of course. I always have a moment to counsel a fellow brother in Christ.”

Shit. Maybe this was a real priest. If so, Louis would probably have to bolt. His pulse quickened as he followed the blonde out the door and around the side of the porch.

“What are you doing?” he hissed, priestly manner gone but accent intact. “ _The Lord works in mysterious ways?_ Y’nearly blew it, now she’s gettin’ suspicious. I know hunters aren’t actors, but c’mon, mate.”

Louis frowned. “You’re a hunter?”

“Niall.” He stuck out his hand, and Louis shook it. “Yourself?”

Louis hesitated for a moment, and then figured there was no real harm in giving him his real first name. “Louis,” he said. “You’re not from around here.”

Niall laughed, boisterous and startling. “Neither are you, mate. Where’re you from, New York?” He said it like _Noo Yawk,_ and Louis bristled automatically.

“Jersey,” he said, a little tersely. “And you’re Irish?”

“How’d you guess?” Niall grinned. Louis wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. “What brings you around, then?”

“Same as you. Male, 32, mauled by an animal the coroner couldn’t identify.”

“Y’thinkin’ werewolf?”

Louis nodded.

“Well,” Niall said, “any backup’s better than none. Can we take your car?”

The question made Louis blink for a few moments before he could answer. “Um,” he said, “I actually, uh, I work alone.”

Another raucous laugh erupted: huge, for such a small person, the kind of laugh that shook the whole body. “ _I work alone_ ,” Niall snorted, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Youse Americans watch too many cop films. I call shotgun. That’s the word, innit?”

Louis nodded, rocking back a little on his heels as Niall seemed to bounce past him, around the car, and into the passenger seat, as though he had been there before, knew he belonged.

Much as he didn’t want to admit it, the job was easier with two people; it only took two shots to bring down the wolf (the wife, as Louis had expected), and Niall had scary-good aim and such a pleasant attitude that Louis found himself cracking a genuine smile for the first time in what felt like months, felt the warmth of the pyre they were in front of, actually tasted the lager Niall had handed him as they leaned on the hood of the Camaro and watched the smoke climb, the remnants of the werewolf’s body—Louis had deliberately not remembered her name—burning down to ash.

“Sick car, mate,” Niall said, with a low whistle. “Yours?”

Louis blinked. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s my dad’s.” His stomach twisted. “Was my dad’s,” he corrected himself. _How long is it going to take you to remember that_ , he chided himself. _It’s been months_.

“Orphan, too, huh?” Niall said, not unkindly, but not with the sort of pity Louis hated more than anything, either. “Join the club. Want to get food?” he asked, and Louis found himself nodding.

*

“You doing alright?” Louis says, eyeing Harry and Liam in the other room. They’re playing Go Fish; Liam’s winning, and the pout on Harry’s face is growing by the minute, made even more ridiculous-looking by the pink bathrobe he’s wearing, which Niall had dug out from some drawer somewhere and tried to argue belonged to Louis. Louis and Liam are both in sweats; Louis resents having to roll the cuffs up so they don’t slip over his hands, but he doesn’t complain more than the cursory amount that would be expected of him. Everything’s normal. He’s normal.

“Been better,” Niall says, “if I’m honest.”

“Your legs?”

Niall waves a hand and takes a sip of his whisky. “You’re always asking after my bloody legs, and they’re fine. What, nothing else could be wrong?” His tone goes uncharacteristically bitter, and Louis waits until he lets out a long exhale. “Sorry. They do hurt a bit more, yeah, since you asked. Leave it, though, would you?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “Sorry, yeah.”

“How’s you and Harry?”

Louis coughs on his next inhale. “What about him?”

“I was in the room, you know, for the whole _snog each other’s faces off and then make a deal_ thing, and the two of you are acting odd. I don’t know him enough to judge, but I know you. I’m not a complete eejit, Lou.”

“I don’t know,” Louis snaps. “I want to get the job done, okay? That’s the only reason he’s here.”

There’s a silence, broken only by the slippery sounds of cards being set down. “Y’ever think about what you might do after?” Niall asks.

“After?” Louis sips his drink.

“You find this thing,” Niall says, “and figure out a way to kill it. I’m working on that, by the way, don’t you worry.”

“I already know how—”

“Without the Colt,” Niall says, “which could be anywhere, or nowhere at all. Have you thought about it, though?”

Louis shifts in his chair. He _has_ , just not in terms he particularly wants to discuss. “Don’t know,” he says. “I’ll figure something out.”

Niall looks at him sideways. “Might be worth figuring before, is all I’m saying. I’ve got a feeling.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You’ve got a feeling? Are you psychic, now?”

Niall cuffs him around the ear. “I talk to people, unlike you. I’ve been working around the clock on this, Louis, you think I just sit here with my thumbs up my arse? I’ve been hunting longer than you, mate, thought you knew that.”

Louis winces. He _does_ know that, it’s just that sometimes, he forgets. Niall doesn’t often seem like he’s been hunting since primary school; there’s a weariness, usually, that comes when someone’s been at it this long, especially someone like Niall, raised in it, having lost his family to it. Niall isn’t _carefree—_ Louis had laughed when Liam had described him as such on their first meeting—but he does live in the present in a way that Louis marvels at and often envies, unable to stop himself from stumbling every so often under the awkward way he shoulders his own past.

“Didn’t say that,” Louis grumbles. Liam’s won the game, apparently, and he’s crowing about it in the next room. “Why are you so interested, anyway?” _Please drop it_ , he thinks.

Niall doesn’t drop it. “Why haven’t you thought about it?”

 _I can’t_ , Louis thinks. _I can’t afford to think about it, having a future._ “I’ll figure it out,” he repeats. “Get off my ass, would you?”

The thump of Niall’s cane against the underside of the table startles him. “Listen,” he says, voice low and serious, “has it not occurred to you that I have a vested interest in keeping you alive?”

“You don’t have to,” Louis snaps. “I can take care of myself.”

“Ah,” Niall says, “so I shouldn’t have followed you, then. You would’ve handled it yourself, don’t need me. Don’t need fuckin’ anyone, do you? My knees’ll be happy to hear it.”

“Niall,” Louis starts—

“Don’t.” Niall sighs, and runs his hands over his face. “Don’t, it’s fine, I’m just tired and they fuckin’ kill, that’s all. I just want to know I’m not sending you on a suicide mission.”

Louis swallows. “You’re not,” he says, softly, and then, “I’m sorry.”

“I know. I know you are.”

“If there’s anything I can do—”

“Don’t make me bury you. That’s what you can do.”

Louis tries for a smile, sipping his drink. “You know I’d want to be salted and—”

“Don’t,” Niall snaps. “You know what I meant, Christ. You can be a fuckin’ prick sometimes, you know that? Doing all kinds of cock-eyed shite and expecting the rest of us not to care when you nearly get yourself killed. It’s selfish, is what it is, you always having me tearing my hair out over you.”

Louis blinks against the burn he can feel welling behind his eyes, and lets the liquor burn his throat on its slow way down. “I’m sorry,” he says again, because Niall’s right.

“I don’t need you to be sorry,” Niall says. “Just don’t make me lose you, too.”

Louis goes to take another sip, but his glass is empty and he doesn’t feel any lighter. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Niall sighs. “Now that that’s over with, y’wanna smoke up?”

“I would _love_ to,” Louis says, emphatically. “You’re my favorite person.”

“Remember it,” Niall says, with a crooked grin that helps calm some of the writhing in his gut.

*

Louis had smoked a little in high school—he’d gone to parties, sometimes, and he wasn’t an _outcast,_ necessarily, or at least if he was, it was by his own choosing—but Zayn was serious about it, forever going on about different strains and blends and small batch farming or whatever the fuck. Louis would only listen enough to mock him, but he would admit Zayn had good weed, seemingly no matter where they went, which he was impressed by. Resourcefulness was high on Louis’ favorite qualities in a person, and indispensable in a partner.

The thing was that he’d always been a mouthy drunk, and, to his dismay, he was even mouthier high, completely forgetting why in the world he would play his cards close to his chest, why he’d keep certain doors locked, deadbolted, and chained. It seemed natural as anything to just share, and it was, because Zayn would nod and understand, and Louis had never had anyone who just _got_ him so well, who didn’t need him to explain himself every other sentence.

So when Zayn asked him, one night when they were lying on the same motel bed after sharing a joint (or was it two?), why Louis never talked about his family, he told him. Not everything; he kept losing his train of thought and forgetting the ends of sentences, but enough to give him a rough idea of the sad, sorry picture.

“Wow,” Zayn said, after a few moments of silence. “That’s fucked up, man.”

“It is,” Louis agreed, although he couldn’t feel the fucked-up then, blissfully weightless. “And, like, then I went to live with my birth father, and now he’s dead too, so I’m a real orphan.” He giggled. “He was kind of a dick, but he’s dead, so I can’t say that.”

“No, no,” Zayn said, with as much urgency as he could apparently muster, “no, man, you’ve gotta, like, get your feelings out ‘n shit, y’know? Fuck, man, so many people have such fucked up dads, like, what is that about?”

“Mine was a hunter,” Louis said. “I can’t remember if I’ve told you that.”

Zayn shook his head. “You just said it was the family business.”

Louis giggled. “Saving people. Hunting things. God, he said that so fucking _much_ , like it was a goddamn Hail Mary or something. _Family business, son. Saving people, hunting things_. I hated it.”

“Tell me about it,” Zayn said, and Louis, to his mild horror, began to cry. In the morning, he apologized, laughing it off, and tried not to notice the new glimmer of concern in how Zayn looked at him.

*

He’s expecting Harry to not know how to hit a bowl or to cough and splutter when he does, but he’s graceful about it, and his eyes flutter closed as he holds the smoke in, his whole face slack except his wide mouth that stays shut for an impressive length of time and then opens, the smoke that unfurls from it delicate and fragile-looking. Louis hasn’t seen Harry in his true form—the pang that hits him when he remembers that Harry’s occupying someone’s body is softer than usual, and melts away into the back of his mind after a moment—but he gets the odd feeling it wouldn’t be the ugly, writhing mass he’s used to seeing, that it’d be something like this.

That’s a nice thought, and he lingers on it long enough that Niall has to poke him before he realizes he’s being handed the pipe and lighter. Louis hasn’t gotten high in ages, and he’s forgotten how much he likes it, how funny and easy everything suddenly seems.

Some time later—minutes, hours, he’s not sure—he realizes he and Harry are the only ones in the living room, both sprawled on the couch and looking up at the ceiling. Louis’ starting to come down.

“You remind me of someone,” Harry says, and Louis lets himself give a little sigh at the way the syllables sound, slow and dripping, like honey, or thick syrup, so sweet it hurts your teeth.

“I do?” he hears himself say.

“Mhm. It’s driving me crazy trying to remember who, though. I don’t remember all that much from being human.”

“More than some, though?”

“More than some,” Harry echoes. “You do pay attention.”

Louis scoffs. “Gimme some credit.” He thinks he feels offended.

“I do,” Harry says. “You pay attention to everything, all the time.”

“Oh?”

“You do,” Harry says. “It looks exhausting.”

Louis feels himself shift on the cushions. “You’ve been watching?”

“I pay attention, too. You try to pretend like you’re not, though, or like you care less than you do. Why do you do that?” He sounds genuinely curious.

Louis’ mouth feels dry. He tries to swallow, and finds that he can’t. “That’s a pretty fuckin’ bold question,” he says, but he sort of wants to answer, is having trouble remembering why he wouldn’t.

“So ask me one in return,” Harry says. “Let’s make a deal of it.”

“I’m fucking sick of deals,” Louis says. Ah. Now he remembers. Demons.

Harry laughs. “Me too.”

“What?”

Another giggle. “Did you think I wouldn’t be? Contracts are boring.”

“We’re in a contract,” Louis points out.

“It’s an interesting one, as far as they go,” Harry says. He pauses. “I was going to study law, you know. In university.”

“I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me.”

“Well, there you go. I probably would’ve been just as miserable if I’d stayed alive and gone to uni.”

“You can change your major, I think,” Louis says, and then he’s silent for a minute before he remembers the other half of that sentence. “You’re unhappy?”

“I thought it was obvious,” Harry says, chuckling again as if he’s just made one of the awful jokes Louis knows he’s fond of. Louis’ kind of fond of them too, if he’s honest, which he wants to be. “And I suppose you’re right. There’s not really much opportunity for all of that once you turn.”

“How did you become a demon?” Louis asks. He wants to know.

“That’s a pretty fuckin’ bold question,” Harry echoes back at him. “I’ll need something in exchange.”

“Not my soul, I hope.”

Another round of giggles. “No,” he says, “nothing like that. Just a story. One that matters as much.”

Louis frowns. “Don’t know if I have any.” _Don’t know if I have_ anything _that matters._

Harry scoffs. “I’m certain you do. Tell me what happened with this demon you're after.”

“You first,” Louis says, because it’s only fair. Maybe. He’s not sure. The cigarette he hadn’t realized he was holding is starting to burn his fingertips, and he curses and drops it in the ashtray, watching it glow blood-orange and curl in on itself as it dies.

“I made a deal,” Harry says. “My sister was sick.”

Oh. “Oh,” Louis says, thinking of Lottie, Fizzy, the twins, all of whom he would lay down his soul for in a heartbeat. He supposes that might be what he’s doing, in a sense. He usually tries not to think about it, but now he is. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” Harry says, “but thank you.” Louis thinks he hears a hitch in his breath. “She’s gone now, which is the funny part. Only about a year after I died, too.” He snorts.

“What happened?”

“Drunk driver,” Harry says.

Louis blinks. “I’m sorry,” he says, meaning it.

“She was the drunk driver, actually,” Harry says, as if he hasn’t heard Louis at all. “I don’t know why I said that. The whole thing just makes me feel stupid, is all, and so I tell it to myself in a way that makes it less, you know?” The whole statement sounds like a question.

Louis does know. About telling stories, that is. “It’s not stupid. She was your family.” The buzzing in his fingers is starting to die down, his thoughts a little clearer. He sits up and looks at Harry, at the blank, odd expression on his lightly sweating face, his blown pupils as he stares at nothing in particular.

“It was stupid,” Harry says, and Louis watches the movement of his mouth, feeling more and more sober by the second. “All it took was one kind-looking nurse asking if I would like to save my sister, that she’d only need one small thing from me, and not for another ten years. I didn’t think twice.” He stops suddenly, eyes widening as if he’s surprised himself, and then he lets out a hollow chuckle and runs a hand down his face; when it reaches his jaw, his expression has gone blank again. “Sorry about that,” he says, “didn’t mean to unload on you.”

 _I want you to_ , Louis thinks, but he stops himself from saying it and snorts. When Harry glances at him with an eyebrow raised, he shrugs one shoulder and says, “Unload.”

Harry giggles into his hand. “I wouldn’t be opposed,” he mumbles.

 _Obviously_ , Louis thinks, _considering._ He sucks in a breath. This is where they talk about it; this is his chance. “Um, so,” he starts.

“It’s okay,” Harry cuts him off, voice soft. “You don’t have to let me down easy. I’m a demon, I know that. I was just...freaked out, from. Y’know. Work stuff. Wasn’t thinking right.”

 _What about before that other demon showed up?_ Louis’ brain nags. _What were you thinking then?_ “Me too,” he says. “I just…”

“Don’t trust me.” Harry sighs. “I don’t blame you.”

“It’s not that,” Louis starts to protest, and then stops. “Yes it is.”

Harry nods. “I can live with that,” he says.

“Me too,” Louis says, again, because it’ll end the conversation, get them on more stable ground—he can feel his feet on the floor, again—but he finds himself thinking, traitorously, that he doesn’t want to live with it, that he’s so, so tired of being suspicious of everyone and everything around him, of being continuously on the defensive. He pushes the thought away before it can take hold.

“Would it…” Harry sighs. “Is it helping, me telling you about it? Or, like, is it that you _won’t_ trust me, or that you _can’t_?”

Louis blinks. He’s not really used to making the distinction; everything falls into the _won’t_ category, where at least he has control over it, where it’s his choice and his fault when things go to shit. “I don’t know,” he says, honestly, and doesn’t miss the way Harry’s mouth tightens at the corners, and doesn’t follow him when he stands, slouching and small-looking, and walks into the bathroom. Louis flinches a little when the door shuts.

He emerges, several long, meandering minutes later, with his hair slightly damp and tied up in a bun near the top of his head. “Your turn,” he says.

Louis holds the smoke in his lungs for a few beats—he’d forgotten about the joint Niall had given him, and he’s been fading pleasantly back into buzzing since Harry walked out. “My turn for what?” he says, watching the light curls of smoke dissipate through the darkness.

“To tell me a story,” Harry says. “Quid pro quo, and all that.”

“Oh,” Louis says. _Quid pro quo._ “Once upon a time, there was a very handsome knight, and a very pesky demon with ridiculous fashion sense…” He trails off and looks up at Harry, belatedly realizing he was waiting for a laugh.

Harry’s expression is impassive. “Don’t joke,” he says.

Louis shrugs. “Kinda my modus operandi,” he mutters, and takes another hit. He half-heartedly offers Harry the joint, and watches the way he purses his lips, considering, before leaning forward and gingerly taking it from Louis’ fingers without touching him. He feels the heat, though, just barely perceptible. “Gotta joke to cope, y’know?”

Harry makes an affirmative noise. Louis tries hard not to watch the shape of his lips when he exhales a decent smoke-ring, and fails; loosened up, he can’t keep himself from thinking about Harry’s mouth, the warm, plush interior of it, the slight roughness where he’s been chewing on his lips, the twisting strength of his tongue.

He lets the silence stretch on until he can feel it begin to strain, and then he sighs, thinking, _what’s the worst that could happen?_ He can’t remember, right now. “What do you want to know?” he says. “You get one question.” He holds his pointer finger up, to reinforce.

Harry answers immediately, like he’s had it prepared. “How did you become a hunter?” he asks.

“Family business,” Louis answers, just as automatically. It’s enough for most people who ask, all of whom are hunters themselves and just nod, eyes alighting with recognition when Louis offers his dad’s name. That’s the end of the conversation, typically, unless they really knew Troy, and want to reminisce, while Louis smiles tightly and laughs in the appropriate places, or unless they didn’t know he was dead, and Louis has to break the news be gracious while they offer their condolences, and then, inevitably, begin reminiscing.

“How do you mean?” Harry presses, like Louis knew he would.

Louis takes another hit, breathing tingling heat into his lungs. “My dad,” he says. “He taught me. I grew up with it.”

“Oh,” Harry pauses. “That doesn’t sound like a nice way to grow up.”

Louis snorts. “Yeah, well.” It’s a half-assed retort, if it even counts as one. Harry’s fingers brush his as he takes the joint, this time, burned down too small to avoid contact. As, frustratingly, it always seems to with Harry, the touch feels sparking, sending the tiniest jolts of electricity up through his forearms and making the hair there stand on end.

“You know,” Harry says, after a while, “that wasn’t very detailed.”

Louis laughs. “Demanding.”

“Heeeeeeeey,” Harry whines. “I spilled my guts, it’s only fair.”

“Nothing’s fair,” Louis says, automatically, “and I didn’t ask you to. If you want my guts you’re gonna have to cut ‘em out yourself.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, sounding far-off. “I've gathered.” They don’t talk after that. When the cherry finally burns all the way out, the only light in the room comes in the faint, silvery suggestion of a moon hidden behind the thick blanket of cloud cover.

*

When he shuffles into the kitchen in the morning, Niall and Liam are at the table, hunched over a map and speaking so rapidly he spends a minute trying to catch on to what they’re talking about, at which point they realize he’s there and whirl around. Niall’s never had much of a poker face; it’s part of the reason he works best from here, lying minimally and out of sight. The guilty cast to his expression says they were talking about Louis. _What else is new_ , he thinks.

“Morning,” he says loudly. “Is there coffee?”

“I made some, yeah,” Liam says, smoothing the map out with his palms. “Should still be pretty hot.”

“Thanks. What’s up with you two?”

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Niall mutters.

“We’ve got a lead,” Liam says.

Louis can physically feel his body wake up, piece by piece. “Excellent,” he says, and pours himself a mug of coffee. He takes a sip and grimaces; Liam brews it weak but insists he doesn’t and that _that’s the way it’s supposed to taste_. “Where is she?”

The shadow that passes over Niall’s face makes the room feel cold and the coffee in his mouth go even more bitter, acrid on his tongue. "With her grandmother,” Niall says. “She told a journalist she was possessed before anyone could get her away from the cameras. Bunch of fuckin’ opportunistic cunts.”

“That’s disrespectful to women,” a deep voice says from behind Louis, and he’s _so sick_ of being startled by the silent way Harry keeps appearing behind him.

He turns on his heel, spilling coffee over his fingers and hissing. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says, “could you stop fucking doing that? It’s rude to sneak up on people.”

Harry blinks. “Sorry,” he says, quietly. “I heard you talking.”

“Yeah, well.” Louis makes a vague gesture with his free hand. “Still. Anyway, Niall, you were saying? She still possessed?”

Niall grimaces. “No way of knowing,” he says. “She was found unconscious in a park in Renton.”

“Fuck,” Louis says, and sits down heavily. His head begins to pound, and his limbs all feel as if he’s strapped cinderblocks to them.

“Where is she now?” he hears Harry say. “How soon can we get to her?”

“Tacoma. It’s not too far, but—”

“Couple hours,” Louis says. “What time is it?”

Liam looks at his watch. “9:15.”

“We can get there by noon, then. Come on.”

“Wait,” Niall says, “hang on, hold your horses. We need to talk strategy, you can’t just go in there guns blazin’ with no plan to actually kill the thing.”

A quiet, distant part of Louis’ brain says that Niall’s right, that a couple of hours to plan won’t do them any harm, but the larger, louder, insistent part of him remembers how it felt to wake up and know what had happened but not why, to be scraped up on the inside from the careless way a demon rode your body, to know that something had used your hands, limbs, tendons, mouth, muscles, brain, had stolen control of them and done what it pleased. That part says _get to her now_ , and it stands him up despite the ache in his legs.

“I’m going,” he says, and is surprised by the hardness of his own voice. “You can come with or not.”

“You don’t even know the address—” Niall protests, and Louis hears the scraping sounds of him standing up.

“Lou, calm down,” Liam says.

 _Calm down, quit makin’ a fuss out of nothin’. Don’t be a goddamn pansy, get in the car._ Louis blinks, tastes blood in his mouth, feels it, as if he could swish it around and spit it out and his teeth would be stained red. _Oh._ He’s chewed open the inside of his cheek. He swallows, and the coppery tang fades.

“Harry,” Louis says, pats down the front of his jeans for his keys, his wallet, his phone. All present and accounted for. “You can find it, right? If I give you my phone?” He doesn’t look at him, but he feels him over his shoulder, at his five o’clock, where he always seems to be lingering. He’ll tell him to cut it out later. Or maybe he won’t, because there’s a chance—a slim one, admittedly—that this will all be over soon, one way or another.

A thrill—unpleasant, but invigorating—runs through him at the thought, and he lets it propel him past Liam and Niall, twisting his wrist out of the hold when Liam tries to grasp it, out the front door, and into the Camaro, waiting for him like a faithful old friend, arms spread open and holster already strapped on, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

He doesn’t check if Harry’s in the passenger seat until the car’s already rumbling, but he is when he looks, expression serious and deadly, and the knowledge of him at Louis’ right feels much like the gun digging into his hip, cold from the night but warming quickly to the temperature of his skin. Soon, he knows, he won’t notice it; it will just be an extension of his body, metal and flesh melded together until the whole thing is _weapon_ . Louis steps on the gas, thinks, _lock and load_.

*

It’s barely been five minutes when Harry speaks. “She killed your family,” he says, like a question even though it’s not one; Harry knows.

“Yeah,” Louis says, tersely.

“Your sisters? You said you had four.”

“No, they got out okay.” It’s like pulling teeth, but maybe more difficult. Louis’ had teeth pulled before, and it felt less like someone was making his insides outsides, bringing into the open the raw, quivering flesh. “My mom and stepdad didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, like he means it.

“Not your fault,” Louis mumbles. He watches the speedometer tick past seventy. It always gets stuck on seventy-five, even though the Camaro goes faster. He’d meant to fix it, but by the time he got around to it, he was attached to the quirk, and he left it alone.

“How old were you?”

The needle stops. “Eleven.”

Harry’s quiet for a moment. “That’s how old I was when I made my deal,” he says, barely audible over the roar of engine and highway.

“Look at that. We have something in common, after all.” They have plenty in common, actually; that’s one of the most unnerving things about Harry.

“It’s very young,” Harry says. “Must have been awful.”

Louis’ face feels hot. “It was,” he says, and then, “This is you pulling my guts out, huh?"

“I can imagine,” Harry says. “And yes, it is. My devious plan, trap you in a moving car and interrogate you about your feelings.” Louis can hear the smirk in his tone.

He rolls his eyes. “Very evil of you. I can see why you didn’t fit in downstairs. For the record, though, that’s a shitty plan. I could always just run us off the road. Or not talk for the next…” A sign flashes by. “Hundred and ten miles.”

“You wouldn’t wreck this car,” Harry says mildly. “And you don’t like silence."

“Okay,” Louis says, “true. I don’t like talking about feelings, either.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Harry says, slowly.

Louis glances at him, sharply, out of the corner of his eye. “What does that mean?”

“Just a feeling,” Harry says, and doesn’t elaborate. "You said stepdad. Did you know your birth father? I mean, because my parents got divorced, not too long after I made the deal, I think because when Gemma was sick they just...fell apart, I suppose, and couldn’t put themselves back together. So. That sucked.” He makes a noise that might be a laugh. “But my stepdad was great.”

 _Quid pro quo,_ Louis thinks, and then says, “Mine was too. Really good dad, as dads go. Stepdads. I don’t know. He was always dad to me, don’t really remember much from before he married my mom. And my real dad skipped out right after I was born, so.” That’s not half the story, and Louis feels the rest of it sticking in his throat, like he’s just puked and it’s going to take a few heaves to get the next load up.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, again, earnestly. “That’s horrible. He was the hunter?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, voice catching as he feels more coming up. “Yeah, I mean. They, um. After...y’know, after all that, the child services people found my father pretty quickly, and Mark never adopted me, even though we got my name changed so I wouldn’t feel like the odd one out. So I had a parent, and that’s where I went.”

“You and your sisters were split up?” Harry’s voice is so painfully gentle Louis feels like he might scream, so he keeps his mouth shut tight, and nods. The fog is starting to clear. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” Louis snaps, blinking furiously and swallowing. “It’s got nothing to do with you. Yeah, it sucked, but it was a long time ago.”

“Twelve years,” Harry says, still soft. “Not actually a long time. Blink of an eye, really.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Okay, Yoda.”

Harry laughs. “God, I haven’t seen those films in years."

“You never did tell me how old you were,” Louis says, relieved at the opportunity to deflect, just at the moment it was becoming truly unbearable to talk about himself.

“Hard to say,” Harry mumbles.

Louis snorts. “How so?”

“Time works differently in Hell,” Harry says, matter-of-fact. “There’s no real conversion table, it’s hard to explain how it works. I actually have no idea how it works. I’d estimate it’s about ten years to a month.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “That quick?”

“That slow,” Harry corrects.

“Shit,” Louis says, for lack of anything better. He wants to ask how long Harry was down there, but he doesn’t think he wants to know the answer, not really.

“But to answer your question, I was born in 1974. And I died in 1995, so not really all that old. Very young, actually, by demon standards. Most of the higher-ups have been around for like, well over a thousand years.”

“Wow.” It’s all he can say. _Twenty one_ , he thinks, and then _twenty years dead_ , at least some portion of that in Hell, where things take ten times as long. He begins to do the mental math, but it makes him nauseous, so he stops. “That’s old,” he says, dumbly.

Harry’s laugh is sudden and loud. “Rude,” he says. “You’ve got a mouth on you, you know?”

Louis does know. There hasn’t been any shortage of people reminding him of that. “You would know.”

“True,” Harry says. “You’ve been cheeky with me since we met. I’m going to miss that, actually. When this is over.” He sounds mournful, almost.

 _Me too_ , Louis thinks. _Me too_. “Can’t say I’m going to miss the knock-knock jokes. Or the...fashion sense.”

Harry doesn’t take the bait. “You know I want to help you, right?” he says, voice edged with urgency and something else that makes Louis’ eyes ache. “You deserve to do something besides run after demons.”

Louis chuckles, humorless. “I’m not actually good at anything else, so that’s probably a lost cause. Sorry to disappoint. I’m not exactly virtuous.”

“Your soul is good,” Harry says, like that’s something people just _say_ , like it doesn’t send Louis’ every nerve into a frenzy that feels for all the world like a firefight. “I knew it when I first met you, when you were pretending to sell it to me. It’s bright, brighter than almost any I’ve seen, which is why I wasn’t ever going to buy it from you.”

Louis’ knuckles go white on the steering wheel. He feels the stitches in the leather pressing into his palms. “You weren’t?”

“No,” Harry says, quiet and serious. “Souls are powerful things. Valuable. You can’t fully appreciate that while you have one, but when you don’t...I dunno. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess? But it’s impossible to put into words, how much a soul, even a twisted, weak one, is worth, let alone one like yours.”

Louis swallows against the sudden sensation that his organs are going to lurch up through his esophagus, out through his mouth, and splatter against the windscreen in a pink gelatinous jumble. “I’m not good,” he mumbles around the tight clench of his throat. “It can’t be worth that much.” He’s not even sure if he believes in souls; he’s only seen evidence of what they can become in Hell.

“I can see it,” Harry says. “It’s one of the perks of the job. Your soul is close to blinding. There was nothing I could’ve given you that would’ve been close to a fair trade.”

“Fair?” Louis echoes. He hasn’t paid much mind to the concept since he was a child; life isn’t fair, and neither is death, or anything in between. All he can do is try to do the _right_ thing, or the closest thing to it. Fairness is for people who lead happy lives, the kinds of lives Louis tries to protect by keeping what evil he can at bay, and doesn’t let himself entertain self-pitying thoughts about what is fair and what isn’t, doesn’t let himself complain about his lot in life. It simply is, and he can’t change that. Wishing only makes it harder to bear.

“Yes,” Harry says, “fair, equitable, whatever you want to call it. I know you don’t believe me, because I’m a demon, and I don’t blame you, but I’m not a thief. My deals are as fair as they can be.”

“I know,” Louis says. Harry’s still wrong about his soul, or else he’s just lying to make him feel better. “And...thank you.” It’s difficult to force out, but he does it, and it feels like a relief, like the knot of his insides gets that much looser. “For helping with this. I know I’m a handful.”

Harry’s quiet for a second, and Louis steels himself for another earnest pep-talk about the worth of his soul, but Harry just smiles wickedly—Louis sees it when he glances over—and says, “Good thing I have big hands.”

“You’re impossible,” Louis says, and it’s true. He knows what’s possible, for him: what distance he can hit a bull’s-eye from; how fast he can run; how long he can hold his breath; and, most importantly, he knows what isn’t.

*

Sometimes, when he’s especially tired or masochistic, having just had a hookup that left a bad taste in his mouth, or botched a job entirely, he feels his mind wandering towards the locked-down places he never usually lets it go, and he thinks, _fuck it._ Like he’s the night guard of brain, replete with a ring of keys on his belt, he unlocks doors he normally doesn’t, and he says, _have at it_ to the things that live inside them—vicious and snarling, dangerous only the way trapped and hungry animals can be—letting them circle around him, licking their chops and growling.

When he was eighteen, his dad walked in on him and a man he’d brought home from a bar thinking Troy wouldn’t be back for at least two days (like he had said), and the silence in the immediate after seemed to stretch on impossibly long, the three of them frozen in some kind of twisted diorama: Louis on his back on the bed, Jeremy on top of him, Troy in the doorway. It gets longer every time Louis revisits the memory, letting it out to prowl around as it pleases.

“Get out,” his father had said, when the silence broke, and then he had taken his pistol out of its holster, as if to punctuate the order. “Get out,” he repeated, leaving the gun at his side where it was visible. Jeremy sprang into action, then, getting off and out of Louis and yanking his pants up as he stumbled off the bed, not bothering with his fly or belt in his haste to leave. Louis didn’t blame him, and slowly reached for his discarded clothing at the foot of the bed.

At the slam of the door, Troy took two steps forward and set the gun down on the motel desk with a heavy, authoritative sound. It was a careless way to leave a weapon out, but Louis suspected that was part of the point, when he thought about it later. It was highly visible, at any rate, impossible to miss, and Louis’ gaze kept flicking back to it as slowly, methodically, Troy went about his usual nighttime routine—boots off, one drink, journal out, another drink, journal shut and stowed—in silence that felt as choking as if there were gasoline soaking the carpet and they were breathing the fumes, waiting for someone to light a match and blow the whole place to smithereens.

The explosion didn’t come. The gun stayed where it was—seeming, sometimes, as if it were winking—and his father was still silent as he sat on the other bed, not looking at Louis, who felt the smallest he ever had as he waited, and waited, and waited.

The memory sort of blacks out after, but he can fill in the rest; he doesn’t need to see it. He lets it howl and scream and gnash its teeth at him until it tires itself out and slinks back into its enclosure, where it goes to sleep, satiated.

*

He’d silenced his phone on the drive here, irritated quickly by the constant buzzing, and when he checks it, he has over a hundred missed calls, fairly equally divided between Niall and Liam. There’s one from a number he doesn’t recognize, and he worries about that for a minute before resolving to figure it out later, when they’re not parked across the road from Stasha's grandmother's home—Gloria Webb, age 68—where Stasha apparently is. A news van partially blocks the driveway. The curtains are drawn.

On his right, Harry rummages through the shoebox where they keep badges. Liam had done up a few for him; Louis had only asked for FBI, but Liam loves his laminator dearly.

“Need some help?” Louis asks mildly, shifting in his seat and trying not to focus on the way the fabric of his suit pants stuck slightly to his thigh. They’d stopped at a gas station to change, Louis into his usual cheap, uncomfortable Fed suit and Harry into a much higher-quality one that he’d produced seemingly out of nowhere and shrugged when Louis asked about. They had taken turns as per unspoken agreement; Louis tried very hard not to think about Harry stripping as he waited and stared at the white door, or as he stripped, himself.

“Why do we have to do this?” Harry asks. “The badges, I mean. Why do we have to pretend to be police?” He frowns, looking at his Fed badge.

Louis sighs. “Well, Liam isn’t exactly pretending, just sort of fudging the particulars. But to your point, people talk to cops. They don’t have to, but people don’t know that, or they get scared to. Nobody’s gonna talk to some schmucks who show up on their doorstep asking about demons.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “That makes sense. People should know they don’t have to talk to the police, though. It feels weird to take advantage of that.”

Louis shrugs. “Pretty sure I’ve lied more than enough already that no amount of Hail Marys’ll cut it anymore, so what’s a few extra? Besides, we’re trying to help. Fix your tie, and let me take the lead on this one.”

“What’s wrong with my tie?”

Louis laughs, and before thinking, reaches across the seat to tighten the knot and work it up, up, towards Harry’s throat, and tries not to pay attention to the way his Adam’s apple bobs as Louis’ fingers brush his skin. “There you go,” he says, without taking his hands off. “Here, hang on, your lapels are all fucked up, too.” He smoothes them down and evens them out as best he can, keeping his gaze firmly on the fabric in his hands. Harry’s a bad actor; he’ll need as much help as he can get to play a convincing Fed. He’d nearly blown their cover twice when they were at the hospital visiting Nick.

“Good to go,” he says, a little high and weak, once he really has no excuse to be touching Harry anymore. “Like I said, let me take the lead.”

Harry nods.

“Got your badge?” Harry shows it to him, but he opens it upside down, and Louis laughs high in his throat. “Alright, don’t do that in there. Badge on top, ID on the bottom, Special Agent Jagger.” He snickers. Harry does have the look of a young Mick about him, gangly and languid at the same time, an oddball kind of charisma that makes Louis think for a fleeting moment that he ought to be a musician, that he might’ve been—he almost asks, but restrains himself. “You ready?”

“For what, exactly?”

Louis shrugs. “Anything.”

“Always,” Harry says, and shoulders the door open.

*

Louis has an EMF meter in his pocket, which is a trick to conceal—it’s a reconfigured Walkman, and bulky as all Hell—but he manages, and the exhausted-looking, salt-and-pepper haired woman who answers when he knocks and nods when he asks if she’s Mrs. Webb, opening the door wider when he shows her his badge and asks if he and his partner can come in and ask a few questions, doesn’t seem to notice it. It doesn’t pick up anything, but he leaves it on, just in case.

“No sulfur,” he mutters to Harry, when they’re sitting on the couch in the living room and Mrs. Webb is upstairs getting her granddaughter. “You picking up on anything?”

Harry shakes his head, although his eyes are wide and the set of his shoulders is rigid, but he’s probably just concentrating. At any rate, Louis doesn’t have a ton of time to think about it, because Mrs. Webb is coming back in, and Stasha is trailing behind her, looking so small and afraid that Louis feels his heart splinter when he sees the wariness in her wide brown eyes, the bruises under them, the too-large sweatshirt she’s wearing with the hood pulled up and the sleeves covering her hands, clenched in front of her chest as she looks them up and down. Louis knows that fear.

“Hi Stasha,” he says, trying to keep his tone balanced between kind and professional, to keep the rolling waves of empathy in check so that he doesn’t do something stupid, like start bawling. He can feel Harry looking at him. “I’m Special Agent Cornell, this is my partner, Special Agent Jagger. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“I already talked to the cops,” she says, no inflection. She sits, rigid, in the armchair across from them—mismatched, just like the rest of the furniture—gaze flitting around the room. Scoping it out. Louis hopes, fiercely, that she’s going to be able to get help after this. He doesn’t know shit about therapy, and doesn’t really trust it, but he doesn’t want her to feel like he did. _Does_. There are supposed to be people who can help with that. “Y'all think I'm crazy, huh?”

“We don’t think you’re crazy,” Louis says, “alright? We’ve got some experience with cases like yours, and we believe you.” He turns to her grandmother. “Mrs. Webb, would you mind giving us some privacy? Standard protocol.”

“Um,” she starts, “I'd really rather—”

“Go, gramma,” Stasha says. “It's fine.”

“Oh,” she says. “Okay. I’ll be in the kitchen. Do y’all want water, or anything?”

“We’re alright, thank you.” Louis gives a tight smile, and she leaves. He turns to Stasha, who's staring at her lap, hunched protectively. She's not going to talk first.

“You told a journalist you were possessed,” he says, after a few beats of silence. “Can you tell me more about that?”

“I was confused,” she starts, immediately, “I wasn’t thinking straight—”

“Hey, wait.” Louis holds a hand up. “Remember I said we believe you? I just want to know what happened, as best as you can remember it.” She looks at him, and he fights down the shiver that wants to run through him at the hollowness of her gaze, its familiarity.

A door slams, and all three of them jump.

Stasha makes a sound close to a nervous giggle. “I already told the cops everything,” she says, wary. “What’s the FBI doin’ here?”

“Special task force,” Louis says smoothly. “And you crossed state borders, so it’s within our jurisdiction. Stasha, I promise you’re not in trouble, and I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. You can trust me,” he says, knowing it doesn't mean anything but hoping it will. “Nothing you say is gonna shock me.”

“What about your partner?” she asks, nodding towards Harry. “He looks spooked.”

“Agent Jagger is new,” Louis says, before Harry’s wide-open mouth has time to make any sound. “In training. Trying to teach him the ropes.” He shoots a glare sideways, and Harry closes his mouth and averts his eyes. Louis turns back to Stasha. “What’s the last thing you remember before you went missing?”

She shrugs, and her gaze settles on Harry as she says, “not much. I was sleeping, I think. They said there was a fire, but I don't remember.”

“Okay,” Louis continues. “The day before, did you notice any black smoke, or smell any sulfur? Like rotten eggs?”

Stasha still doesn’t look at him. He hears footsteps upstairs. “Why’re you asking?” she says. “What kinda cop are you?”

“I’ll explain,” Louis says. “Just answer as best you can, okay?”

“What’re your names, again?” Her gaze is locked on Harry, and Harry’s looking at the floor between his dress shoes.

Louis shifts on the couch. “I’m Special Agent Cornell, this is Special Agent Jagger.”

“Your first names,” she says. She’s playing with one of the strings of her hoodie, pulling it down to scrunch up the hood and then undoing it, over and over.

Okay. Familiarity will probably help, here. The Fed thing seems counterproductive; Louis needs to make them seem approachable, safe. He puts a hand on his chest. “I’m Louis,” he says, “and this is Harry.”

“Harry,” she repeats, “and Louis.” The corner of her mouth twitches, and she stops playing with the hoodie string. She mutters something under her breath.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Louis asks, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, willing his pulse to slow down. Something’s not right. _Well, obviously_ , he chides himself, _she’s just been ridden by a demon for weeks_.

She smiles, and the room goes suddenly, totally frigid, like every particle in the air has frozen at once. “I said it’s nice to see you both again. It's been a while.”

Every hope Louis had that this was just a trauma reaction vanishes as she blinks one, two, three times, long eyelashes fluttering, and when she opens them wide and stretches her grin even wider, there are no pupils, no irises: just solid, deep red, the color of congealed blood, seeming to suck the light in from around it and swallow.

He hears, louder than it should be—all sound has been turned up a few decibels, he can hear the steady _drip drip drip_ of a leaking faucet in the kitchen, the light rustling of leaves outside the window—Harry make a sound like the breath has been punched out of him. Louis sees in his periphery the way his hands have clenched into fists, but he can't pay attention to anything that isn’t the poisonous, ugly way the demon riding Stasha’s raking its gaze over Louis’ body, head to toe and back again. He tries to fidget, and finds that he can’t, a wave of nausea rolling through him at the realization. He’s trapped, again, because he’s been stupid, and reckless, and everything he's tried not to be and failed.

“My, my, you’ve grown up quite a bit since I last saw you.” Her tone is edged and saccharine, miles away from the haunted, hollow, child’s voice it’s taken over. _She’s just a kid_ , he thinks, and feels a hot wave of despair course through his gut. “Although I suppose I wasn’t seeing you, per se. Just from the inside.” She grins.

“Cut the crap,” Louis starts to say, his voice only cracking slightly. “What have you done with her?”

The demon rolls her eyes. “She’s _asleep_ , silly,” she sighs. “I was actually having a rather lovely nap until the two of you strolled in here asking questions. It took you a while to find me, didn’t it? I admit I was surprised. Your daddy was always so quick about it. But I suppose the apple can...roll away from the tree, no? This one is nothing like her mother.” She gestures downwards, as if she’s talking about an outfit, and not a human being, a _child_ she’s wearing. “Lovely woman. It's a shame, but what can you do?”

“Fuck you,” Louis spits.

She tuts and drums her fingernails on the table, a dull _clack-clack-clack_ that reminds him of being in school and unable to concentrate because someone was doing that or tapping their pencil or something, and it sets his teeth on edge. “So rude. Didn’t your mother teach you better?” Her eyes flash, and she keeps on drumming. “Oh. No, she didn’t. Shame.”

“Fuck you,” he says, again, because he can’t think of anything else, and he can’t move, _he can’t fucking move_. “You fucking evil, twisted sack of shit, I’m gonna—”

“Quiet,” she snaps, and he finds himself suddenly, terrifyingly unable to talk, as though his mouth has been filled with cement. “I don’t have time for this today. I’ve a very busy schedule, I’m sure you understand. I made time for you as a courtesy, since you’ve spent your whole life hunting me down. Have you not?”

Louis can’t answer, so he tries to say it with his gaze. _I’m going to end you_ , he thinks, _I don’t know how, but I am_.

She snorts. “How sad. Makes me kind of want to leave you and your friend be. Speaking of which…” She flicks her wrist, and Louis’ head jerks to the side, with so much force that he can literally feel something rip, and lets out a hurt, shocked noise through his closed mouth.

Harry’s facing her, all the color drained from his face, like every bit of red pigment in his body has been redirected to his eyes, which are open so wide Louis is worried momentarily that he’s done something to them, and he’s _worried about Harry_ , but that thought flits away before he can do anything with it, and then the demon’s talking again.

“Harry,” she says, softly. Louis remembers working a job where a witch was actually putting razor blades in Halloween candy. Three people died before Louis and Zayn got to her. That’s what her voice sounds like. “It’s been awhile. You look well, my dear.”

Harry doesn’t move a millimeter. He doesn’t even blink; he just sits there, like he’s turned to stone, like in one of the books Louis’ mom read to him when he was little, that had scared him so bad he’d been up half the night and eventually she’d let him get in bed with her. The fear coursing through him now has a similar quality, but it’s quickly chased by anger at Harry not _doing anything_ , just like the last time, just like—

“I must say, when Magee told me he’d seen you, I almost didn't believe him. You're a crafty one. I've always liked that about you, you know that.”

 _Was this the plan?_ It must have been; Louis’ been so _stupid_ , so guided by impulse and urge that he’s let himself be taken hook, line, and sinker. She knows Harry; Harry’s been working for her all along. Harry brought them here, and now Harry’s not doing anything to fight her, or even running. He sits there, arms limp at his sides, and looks, and Louis feels like he might burst from the inability to shriek and curse and spit, _how dare you_ , even though he can see it perfectly and knows this is his fault. He still wants to tear Harry to shreds, rip him apart with his teeth.

“I’ve missed you, darling,” the demon says, in that same tone, the combination of sultry and saccharine mixing into something outright sickening. “Is this what you’ve been up to, hm? Frolicking around with some pretty hunters?” She points to Louis. “Is that the one there? I heard you got up to some fun.”

All this time, she’s been circling around Harry, and he hasn't moved an inch. She’s close enough to touch him, now, and Louis sees her put a hand on his shoulder and the way Harry’s arm tenses, and he sees her lean in to whisper something in Harry’s ear, and he sees the way he can’t seem to help but shudder at whatever she said, and then she’s approaching Louis, casual as anything.

“This has been a pleasure,” she says, “but I really do have to be on my way. Harry—” He snaps to attention, gaze fixed on her. “—be a dear, won’t you, and take care of the rubbish? Then we can go home.”

The mounting horror in Louis’ abdomen only builds when he sees Harry give a sharp, jerky nod—he _can_ move, he just hasn’t _wanted_ to—and begin to walk towards Louis, in his same strange, loping way; Louis had figured he would drop the act, walk more menacingly now that he’s been given his orders and is carrying them out. That Harry should kill him while standing with his toes turned inward and his hip cocked seems like some kind of grand cosmic joke, but Louis knows it’s just his own fucking hubris, his comeuppance for trusting a demon—and he _has_ trusted Harry, he realizes, for all that he'd told himself he was being vigilant—for turning his back on what his father taught him.

 _Sorry, Dad_ , he thinks, as Harry gets close enough that Louis can feel the way he displaces the air around and between them. The indignity of not being able to talk, to chew Harry out for this—although it’s his own fault, really—eats at him.

He can still move his head, and he looks up at Harry, trying his best to jut his chin out and look unflinchingly into the scarlet of his eyes, to say, _go on, then, fucker, I’ll see you on the other side_.

There’s a crash behind them, but Louis doesn’t look away. If Harry’s going to kill him, if this is the way it’s going to shake out, he can damn well look him in the eye when he does it. Louis isn’t going to die looking over his shoulder.

 _Don’t be a coward_ , he thinks, eyes burning from keeping them open. _Be a fucking man about it_.

His vision fades to pulsing, endless red, vast and violent, and everything else falls away.

*

Louis doesn’t remember the first time his father hit him. He should. That’s the kind of thing he should remember, but everything in the months after the fire is so blurry; he doesn’t know how many times it happened before he started remembering, just that the first time he can recall—when he was twelve, and had dropped the silver bullets he was meant to be holding, and they had rolled into a storm drain—he doesn’t remember being surprised, so he knows it wasn’t the first time it had happened.

It would happen a lot, and then not for a while. Generally, Louis thinks, if you graphed it out, the incidents would decrease over the years, as he got better, more capable, more responsive, less of a burden. But he acted out more and more as a teenager, too, fighting at school and going to bars using one of his fake IDs that were only for cases, and so it would happen more. If he pulls back from it, as he’s occasionally able to do, he can almost realize that the variable at play was mostly Troy’s emotional state, the state of the hunt, but that’s not often, and he can’t fault his dad for getting annoyed with him when he was such a pain-in-the-ass kid that he’d got stuck with because Louis killed the family who wanted him. He really can’t. Zayn tried. Niall did, too, but less, or less that Louis remembers. Zayn was the only one who looked him in the eye and asked, “Did your dad knock you around when you were a kid?” to which he rolled his eyes, scoffed, and told Zayn not to be so dramatic before firmly changing the subject and ignoring the searching way Zayn looked at him, deciding whether or not to push it.

The thing is that it’s not a big deal. Louis had a fucked up adolescence in a lot of ways, and, perversely, he sometimes delights in how normal that kind of fucked-up was. An occasionally violent dad popping him in the mouth for some smart-aleck comment wasn’t far out of the ordinary, not the way hunting vampires and ghosts and demons was. People always tried to make it a bigger deal than it was—not that he ever talked about it, outside an offhand, drunken joke to a stranger, but turn up at school with your arm in a sling or one leg dragging behind the other often enough and people start getting suspicious.

Thankfully, they were never really in one place long enough for those suspicions to lead to anything, but Louis hated, _hated_ , when a teacher would pull him aside after class and get that horrible pitying look on their face, the tone like he was a child with a boo-boo, and ask if something was going on at home, if someone was hurting him. He’d always say no, and smile. He never used a _fell down the stairs_ excuse, that would be stupid, but he always had one prepared: he had gotten his bike stuck in the train tracks and flipped over the handlebars; he had been working on his kickflips and banged his knee and elbow on the concrete; he had had an accident in wood shop, with the buzzsaw. Specific enough to be believable, not enough detail that it was clearly a lie. He had it down to a science. And it wasn’t exactly a lie, not really; no one at home was causing the injuries he’d get asked about, but he couldn’t well say that a demon had flung him into a wall, or that a possessed car had hit him before his father had been able to burn the bones of the ghost controlling it.

There was only one time he was asked about an injury that had actually been his dad, tired and irritated at Louis, fifteen and bouncing off the walls, being apparently unable to sit still and work on some hex bags, which was a simple fucking task, so he should’ve been able to get it right.

“Nah,” he said, swallowing. “Got into a fight, you know how I am. Loudmouth and all.”

The inquiring teacher, Ms. O’Reilly, frequently sent him out of class for talking or being otherwise disruptive, so at his excuse her brow smoothed and she adopted a look of relief and slight amusement, raising an eyebrow at him and telling him that if he spent half as much time on his math homework as he did causing trouble, he’d have an A+ in her class. He smiled, sheepishly, and hauled his backpack over his shoulder, bolting out of the room and into the bathroom, where it took him upwards of ten minutes to stop shaking. He was late to third period for the second time that week, and he got detention, and so he got home two full hours later than he’d been supposed to be to go scope out the town cemetery (and then run drills, and then clean the guns), and the rest of the day sort of sucked. Not worse than anything had sucked before, though, so he couldn’t complain, not about a stupid sore knee and a little bit of rug burn on his elbows, nothing that even needed bandaged, nothing that would last longer than a couple of days, at most.

Occasionally, he would find himself wanting to talk about it, say, _hey, I don’t think my dad liked me very much, and I don’t really blame him because the circumstances were fucked up, but I feel weird about it, and sometimes he hit me, and I feel weird about that, too, and sometimes I feel like it was the most normal part of it, which is probably a fucked up thing to think,_ ask, _what do you think? How should I feel about this?_

He was good with directives, and when, suddenly, he had none, he was lost, and he needed someone to tell him what to do, what to think, what to feel. That, more than anything, was what fucked him up, and sometimes he wants to talk to someone, but he knows they’d just fixate on the wrong things, the fact that sometimes his dad got kind of violent with Louis when he pissed him off, and what they wouldn’t get was that it made sense, and that that comforted him. Louis was annoying, he got hit. Louis fucked up a hunt, there were consequences. Cause and effect. An order to the chaos and destruction that made up the stuff of his life since he burned his house down with his mom and stepdad trapped in it while a demon controlled his body. He was in control: it was his job not to fuck up, to follow orders, to keep his head down, to do what the case demanded of him and to do it well. He learned from being punished for his failures, one way or another, and things made sense.

Maybe the punishment for how it was sort of his fault his father died was being left, alone and directionless, to have to figure out how to keep himself in check without the guidance he’d come to rely on. That was the part that he didn’t have the will nor the language to communicate: how small and afraid that made him feel; how he’d yearn, sometimes, for someone to tell him he’d fucked up or he’d done well, someone whose word was law, someone who would keep him in line; how good and evil and right and wrong were things he had to figure out, to remember, on his own, now, and how that terrified him to his very core. There weren’t words for it, not really, not ones that would make anyone understand it, not ones that didn’t sound pathetic and sad, and so when Zayn nagged him about it, he kept his mouth shut and reminded himself that blubbering about his feelings wasn’t what a good hunter did, and so it wasn’t something he was going to do, and that was that.

*

There’s something latched onto his face: a monster of some kind, must be, something he needs to get _off_ before it sucks the blood or the bone or the fucking life force out of him, but when he reaches up, scrabbling at it with his fingernails, there’s no soft give of flesh, no hair, no scales, no slime, no exoskeleton, nothing that feels like any kind of creature: just smooth, unyielding plastic, familiar but not soothing. He keeps pulling at it, knows it means bad things, but something warm and dry closes around his wrist, stopping him.

“No, no, don’t take the mask off, you need that. Do you know where you are?”

For a petrifying, awful moment, he thinks he’s going to open his eyes and find himself back in time, in a white room, where a nurse will gently inform him his parents didn’t make it and he shouldn’t strain himself trying to talk, and then he’s going to have to relive the past decade-plus, making the same mistakes over and over.

It passes, as his surroundings come into focus, black spots blinking in front of his eyes as the dark, pulsing red begins to recede. The hissing noise is an oxygen concentrator, which is connected to the mask strapped to his face, and out of the corner of his eye he can see the steady, pneumatic motion of the pump that’s forcing air into his lung; it hurts, as if there are red-hot coals rattling around inside and singeing the fragile tissues and the machine is just stoking the flame. He wants it off, but he stops pulling at it when the authoritative voice commands him to, and he forces himself to take deep, slow breaths, ignoring the raw scrape of his throat.

There’s a tiled ceiling above him, off-white and a little eroded at some of the corners. Fluorescent lights scream down and force him to look away, tentatively turning his head side to side and letting out a strangled, hurt noise when the motion reminds him that something tore in his neck when the demon riding Stasha forced him to look at Harry, before Harry—

Harry’s there, sitting with his hands clasped together between his knees and his head bowed in a hospital chair that’s too small for him. He doesn’t look up when Louis rasps his name.

“For the record,” he hears, from his right, “this is the kind of cockeyed shite I was talking about yesterday. Obviously I wasn’t clear enough.” For all the amusement Niall’s forcing into his tone, there’s a clear undercurrent of fear and anger, and it’s sobering, more so when Louis—carefully, gingerly—turns in the direction of his voice and sees how haggard he looks, eyes pink and swollen. He’s been biting his nails; he’s made himself bleed, in places.

“Harry,” Louis tries to say, picking his left hand up as if to say, _there, get him_.

Niall ignores him. “Liam’s down talking to the police and trying to get your arse out of an arson charge. And I think committing insurance fraud, but I did most of the legwork on that. Too straight-laced, that one.” He shakes his head, grimacing. “Oh, and if you were wondering, we were right behind you, and thank the bleedin’ lord for it.”

“What,” Louis starts, but Niall holds a hand up, and it shuts him up. The look on his face scares him.

“Don’t try to talk, your throat’s bollocksed from the smoke. Y’wanna know what happened?”

Slightly, irrationally fearfully, Louis nods. He rolls his eyes in Harry’s direction, and hopes it conveys the message.

“We’ll get to him,” Niall says. “Anyway, like I said, Liam and I were right behind youse. Maybe a half hour or so. Would’ve been quicker if Liam hadn’t driven, you know how he is, always fretting about the bleedin’ speed limit. So after you made your dramatic exit, we hit the road. Imagine my surprise when we got to the house to find it _on fire._ Y’know, an outcome no one could’ve predicted or planned for, given this demon’s history.” Louis doesn’t like sarcastic, agitated Niall. He finds himself shrinking away from the burn of his gaze, the bite of his voice, and hating himself for it, because Niall is right, and, horribly, awfully, brutally, he feels his eyes getting hot and wet, and he blinks furiously against it.

“So Liam, self-sacrificing, honorable fucker he is, runs straight in there to find you, past all the fire engines and, y’know, actual firefighters, and I sit there like an eejit ‘cos I can’t run, which, by the way, I would be able to if you weren’t such a fucking suicidal stupid arsehole, and it’s well over a quarter of an hour before anything happens, so I’m making my peace with the idea that you’ve gone and got yourself killed, and possibly Liam, too, and then this one—” He nods toward Harry. “—comes staggerin’ out with the both of you, Liam on his back and you in his arms, lookin’ a fuckin’ fright, and, oh, by the way, _not breathing_ , and he gets the paramedics by shrieking his head off and hangs around while they resuscitate you before he goes running back in to find the grandmum. She’s dead, by the way.” The words hang harsh in the air, and Louis feels his face crumple. “Anyway, he hasn’t said a word since, gone completely catatonic, so if you could get him to explain himself at some point, that’d be aces. Oh, and Liam got a fuckload of second degree burns chasing after you. Demon boy did, too, but he won’t let anyone treat them. So. Here we are. You’re going to be fine, by the way, just some minor burns and smoke inhalation, but they were worried about brain damage since no one knew how long you’d not been breathing. Any questions?”

Meekly, Louis shakes his head. _She’s dead she’s dead she’s dead_ rings in his ears, followed by _not breathing not breathing not breathing_ and _shrieking his head off_ and then back to _she’s dead._ Wait. Shit, he does have a question. He makes a vague gesture, not even sure what it’s supposed to imply, but Niall seems to get his point, and he reaches over to grasp the oxygen mask, says, “Keep it simple,” and then lifts it away.

“Stasha?” Louis croaks. “Anyone else?”

Niall lets the elastic snap the mask back over his face, and shakes his head, expression somber. “Missing again,” he says, “and no, thank fuck."

There’s the sound of a door opening, and Niall turns toward it. “Yeah, he’s awake,” he says, “thank you. Think he’s in pain, though. Lou?” Louis nods. “If you could up the morphine I think he’d appreciate it.” Louis nods again. He wants to not feel. “His blood pressure’s spiked a few times, but not enormously, and I was sort of chewing him out, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

A nurse bustles around him and makes notes on a clipboard, and then does something to the morphine drip in his arm he hadn’t noticed, and he counts down for the dark to swallow him again.

*

Waking up is déjà vu, again, and again, and again, because he keeps falling asleep less than a minute after awakening, and when he’s finally lucid for more than a few moments, it’s dark out, and there’s still a shadowy figure slumped in the chair next to his bed.

He swallows; it’s like a knife, but duller than before, and when he tries his voice, he’s able to produce a decently clear sound. He’s heartened, momentarily, and then feels a rolling wave of nausea, despair at how he keeps ending up here, one way or another, she keeps putting him back here, as if it’s a game—and it is, he realizes. It’s a game he’s just a piece of, and she maneuvers him into the same corners over and over, his pawn perspective short-sighted and stunted, only able to think one square at a time.

The figure beside him—Harry, he realizes—stirs slightly, letting out a small sigh and sniff. He clears his throat, and Harry’s shape freezes, tension radiating off him. If Louis could, if he had the energy, he’d sit up and shake him by the shoulders and say, _explain_.

As it stands, all he can do is croak, “What the fuck?” and hope that his meaning is clear.

There’s silence, punctuated by the rhythmic, irritating beep of the monitor and the wheeze of the oxygen machine, and for a second it seems like he can hear Harry’s eyelids sticking together when he blinks. The dim light from the hallway reflects and refracts in his huge, dark pupils.

 _Explain_ , he tries to say with his face.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers, which is not what he was expecting, and if he weren’t lying down it might make him stumble. “I’m so fucking sorry, I’m—God, I don’t even know where to start.” He sounds wretched, miserable and small.

Fuck it. Louis lifts his oxygen mask off. He feels okay, better than he’d felt the other times he’d woken up like this. He concentrates on clearly pronouncing each syllable when he says, “You were working for her this whole time.”

“ _No_ ,” Harry insists, “no, that’s not it at all, I’m sorry.”

Louis ignores him, taking a few good inhales before continuing. “How’d you get rid of her, then? She let you go out of the goodness of your heart? Or was the deal that you delivered me to her doorstep and you’re forgiven? That whole sob story was a lie.” He has to stop to cough and take deep breaths from the mask.

When he looks back up, Harry’s hunched in on himself, his expression pitiful and twisted. “It wasn’t,” he says, voice cracking. “I swear I told you the truth, I didn’t know it was her. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He keeps mumbling it, staring at the floor and rocking a little bit, like he’s not aware of it.

“I’m just about done with the cryptic bullshit,” Louis rasps, “and my lungs don’t like me talking, so you’re gonna need to elaborate.”

Harry mutters something unintelligible, still looking at the floor.

“What? Speak up, I can’t fucking hear you.” Beneath the scraping whine of the smoke inhalation, Louis recognizes the tone he’s using, both strange and familiar at once, although he’s not sure he can place it. Bizarrely, it makes him kind of want to cower away from the sound, even though he’s making it.

“Her name is Caroline,” Harry says, louder, shaking like a leaf. His voice barely carries over the few feet of space between them and the noise of the machines. “That was Caroline. I swear I didn’t know it was her you were looking for. I mean, I started to get suspicious, but I thought I was just being paranoid, y’know, looking over my shoulder. There are a lot of demons who fit the profile, I didn’t want it to be her, I’m _sorry_.” Louis fights the sudden, strong impulse to roll to the side of the bed and reach his hand out, to comfort and soothe, until it passes, leaving him slightly winded.

“Who’s Caroline?” he wheezes, then, even though he thinks he knows. He needs to hear it from Harry’s mouth.

Harry exhales, long and slow and controlled, and closes his eyes again, face taut. “My boss,” he says, “although, um, more than that, really, she is—was—my, like, mentor, is what she’d probably call herself.” He’s clearly trying to keep his voice steady and even, and something in Louis starts to ache, not a pain he recognizes from any of his former injuries or illnesses.

He nods, as if to say, _go on_.

Harry doesn’t, for several lengthy minutes; when continues speaking, it’s with the deadened, flat tone that’s come out occasionally in conversation, that has, each time, made Louis edgy and curious at the way Harry so obviously goes somewhere else while still forming words. Harry’s got a morbid voice to begin with, but this is like all the life has been sucked out of it and then some. “She didn’t, like, trap me or anything. I think she just expected me to do what she said. Which, I mean.” The bitter, joyless laugh Harry lets out makes the ache pulse again, hard. “She wasn’t really wrong, was she? I was going to.” He says it again. “I was going to.”

“I’m not...I don’t know how to explain, and I’m sorry. You should get away from me, I can’t be trusted.” Suddenly, he heaves a dry, lurching sob that seems to shake his whole body, and buries his face in the crook of his elbow, shoulders shaking.

Louis is dumbfounded—he couldn’t talk, even if it didn’t hurt, he doesn’t think. He knows, deeply and completely, that the fear he’s seeing isn’t fake. Harry is terrified.

“Try me,” he hears himself croak. “Stay. Talk.”

“Okay.” Harry wipes at his face; it’s blotchy and red, but his eyes are dry when he looks up, hesitant, as if unsure he heard Louis right. Louis nods. “Okay. Um, thank you. I don’t know how to start—”

“Beginning is usually good,” Louis says. He shouldn’t keep speaking; half the syllables are coming out silent, just air.

Something like a smile twitches at the corner of Harry’s mouth. “That might take a while.” Louis gestures to the machines around him, raises his eyebrows like _where the fuck do you think I’m gonna go?_ The shadow of a dimple appears, just for a split second. “Fair,” he says. “The beginning, then.”

It’s a little terrifying, how, when he watches Harry’s eyes, he can see him recede, as if he’s physically recoiling within his host body in order to keep talking in that flat, even timbre. “I told you about my deal, before, so I’m not gonna go over that, but my sister’s cancer was gone, I had ten years, and then...then I went to Hell. And, um, I’m not sure I can describe what it’s like, because I don’t think when I was human I had, like, any frame of reference for it. I thought I had an okay understanding of pain and all, especially watching Gemma go through everything, but, um. I didn’t. I really didn’t.

“There’s, like, there’s this thing about pain. It takes over everything, everything exists in relation to it. It’s like…” Harry trails off for a moment, staring past Louis, far into the distance, as if at an awe-inspiring view, or something more fearsome, something that, after a beat, makes him squeeze his eyes shut against it, and keep talking. “When all you’ve known for so long is this pain you can’t get away from, no matter how hard you try, the only thing on your mind, the only thing you care about, is escaping it, you know? You do whatever you can to avoid it. Things you wouldn’t have thought you were capable of doing.”

Louis nods. He does know, in some measure. He knows what it’s like to run like the hounds of Hell are on your heels and if you pause or falter at all they’ll take you down in a single breath; he knows what it’s like for your existence to become a spectrum from “pain” to “less pain,” and for the latter to always be understood as temporary, as something that might be pulled out from you at any time, as something that required work and diligence to keep at all. All he knows, it feels, is how to slip out of near-death situations, how to cheat, lie, and steal his way out of the graves he digs for himself. Taking, running, hiding. How to move through the chaos until he becomes part of it.

“I was…” Harry takes a few deep breaths, eyes closed. “I was offered an out, and I took it. I didn’t care about anything except it not hurting anymore. I think it had been, like, ten years, at that point. Not long, but I was...I dunno. Soft. Naive, I suppose.

“Someone took a shine to me,” he continues, and Louis doesn’t want to know what taking a shine means in Hell. He doesn’t want to think about a child bargaining his soul for his sister’s life and being hurt until he was no longer human. “My boss, actually. She was, um...assigned to me, I think, although she might have asked.” He laughs, hollow.

Louis tilts his head. “Assigned?” he says, mask still on.

Harry hears him, it seems. “To torture me,” he says, in that same lifeless tone. “She was quite...experienced.”

Visions of Harry screaming in pain, strapped down and unable to move, flash unbidden through Louis’ mind. It sends a shudder through him, and the ache low in his abdomen twists viciously. Harry’s quiet for a minute, gazing off in the distance, one hand rhythmically squeezing his thigh in a way that looks like it would hurt. He’s not here, not really; this is something else Louis’ rarely seen from this side, but he recognizes it, the shock like realizing for the first time that what you thought was a window into the next room is actually a mirror, and your own reflection startles you so badly you nearly shout.

“Anyway,” Harry continues, a little louder, “she took a liking to me, I suppose, and after a while she started offering...things. Said she liked my spirit, and if I wanted, she could pull some strings and get me a cushy job as her apprentice. All I had to do was...I mean, nevermind, it’s just...”

There’s another long, dreadful pause. Louis looks at the hunch of his back, much narrower than he’d thought it was when they first met. How long had it been? Months, surely. He’s not sure how many. Tentatively, he starts to take his right hand off the rail of the bed and reach over in a gesture of comfort, but when he gets close, Harry flinches hard, crowding himself up against the wall and making himself small, knees in front of his chest and arms crossed, shielding his neck.

 _Oh._ Louis is suddenly very sure—he’d had his suspicions, but kept them aside—that he doesn’t want to hear the rest of this. He has to, though. He feels like he’s on the precipice of understanding something fundamental. He starts to reach for the mask, to say _I’m not gonna hurt you_ , but swallows it back down and says nothing, lips sealed tight.

After some indeterminate period of time—minutes, hours, he’s not sure, he can’t count the beeps on the monitor, too focused on the shape of the body shaking in the chair—Harry unfolds himself, slowly, like it takes a lot of effort. “I couldn’t say no to her,” he says, as though it’s being dragged out of him, ripping and tearing along the way. “So, I’m sorry. That’s what that was about. I froze, I just...I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t, not while she was there. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He breaks off into wracking, ugly sobs, holding them in as long as he can before they erupt out of him, and Louis looks on, helpless, and thinks, _you were just a kid. Just a fucking kid._

 _I get it,_ he wants to say, but stays silent, and he doesn’t protest when Harry shakes his head, visibly collecting himself, and presses the button on Louis’ morphine drip three times, mumbling, “You should get some sleep,” and crossing towards the door on stumbling, fawn-like legs. The room feels somehow louder in his absence, and Louis’ puzzling about that as the thick cotton-wool feeling spreads sluggishly through his limbs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Apologies for the delay in getting this chapter done (is anyone keeping track? I'm curious about who is reading this). Death in the family, had to go back to NJ for a bit. No fun. BUT Mars went direct on Wednesday, so here's hoping that things get moving for everyone! The YEAR OF REALIZING THINGS has been tough, but hopefully it's a little less maddening w/o a Mars retrograde making it difficult to DO anything about the THINGS YOU REALIZE. Anyway. I also turn 21 this week which is very exciting, but not for y'all, so...moving on.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: explicit sexual content, mentions of death, violence, injury, etc. (the usual), references to substance abuse, past trauma...I think that's it? Weird feelings about bodily autonomy, idk. If you need any more detail on any of these, as always, please feel free to let me know!
> 
> Thanks a million--truly--to Kate for the editing assistance and enthusiasm even though gdocs insists "everytime" is the correct way to write it (Chrome, however, has underlined that in red, so get it together, Google). Best beta I could ask for. Love also to Cara and Lee for talking through stuff/encouragement/reassurance. Cancer season makes us all very tender. I promise I'm shutting up now. Hope you enjoy!

The house had the appearance of having been built with Lincoln Logs, and every time he approached it, Louis would remember the set he had gotten for his birthday when he was six, which he would play with for hours, building the same cabin over and over again with minor variations. Niall had bought it some years ago, at auction, under circumstances he became bizarrely evasive about when asked, and since his injury had rarely left it for more than a couple of days at a time. “No place like home,” he’d say.

The lot was about five acres, all told, the majority of it wild and forested with pine trees that cradled and shielded the cabin from sight until you were practically on top of it, in the long gravel-and-dirt driveway that led to the house on the left and to something of a salvage yard on the right, and behind them both there was a fairly large pond with quite a few fish that would occasionally attract a bald eagle or two. The soil around it was slate-rich and dark, cool no matter the temperature, and while it wasn’t safe to swim in—some kind of hideous algae thing that would apparently poison anyone who tried—in the summer, Louis would often sit on the bank and submerge his calves, watching the gentle way the water distorted them, the way the sunshine bounced off the placid surface, or how rain would turn it tumultuous and disturbed, licking up the banks and into the grasses, drowning them. Niall also swore there was a selkie at the bottom, and Louis was only mostly sure he was joking.

The house itself sat in a small clearing, square with a high-vaulted, green metal roof that gave it a verticality that imitated the thicket around it. On two sides, it was surrounded by a raised deck: orange-toned pine, warped a little from years of rainfall and footsteps, and obviously a later addition to the building. Niall was always talking about painting it—that is, getting Louis and Zayn to paint it—so that it didn’t stick out like such a sore thumb from the grayish-brown birch that made up the rest of the house, but painting wasn’t feasible given the condition of the wood, and staining the entire house would be a project beyond any of their capacity.

Smaller renovations, though, Niall would throw himself into with a fervor: the first year, he had built shelving into nearly every free wall, lining them with the truckloads of books—literally, he had filled up the flatbed of the pickup (Barbara, a ‘78 Chevy, bright blue and reliable) five times over. He had repaired all the broken hinges on the kitchen cabinets, and filled the pantry with every herb and crystal imaginable, yarrow and witch hazel and rosemary and ashes and a million tiny bones only he could seem to identify. He had spent a few dry weekends painting the doors, window-frames, and shutters a light yellow-green that from a distance looked like small, young sprouts growing insistently through the walls, and soon plants of a dozen varieties were actually growing throughout the house, vibrant and alive. The bathroom got new tile and grout.

The space under the deck, though, had been the main draw of the house, and was its major project. A previous owner, during the Cold War, had built what could only be described as a makeshift nuclear bunker. It was fairly unassuming from the outside; the latticework, in the same pine as the rest of the deck, suggested a space for tool storage, probably home to a family of raccoons or something else of the like. Near the back of the cramped space, though, was a trapdoor, difficult to make out in the dark and blending into the dirt, that required quite a bit of strength to open, as well as the combination to a hefty lock. Once it was open, a small metal ladder lead down into the complete darkness, which was incredibly unnerving, but which ended at about ten feet, and when you found the lightswitch on the right, it wasn’t a gaping chasm at all, but a small, cramped, concrete box with a set of metal-framed bunk beds, a bucket, and a couple shelves stocked with dry and canned goods.

The bunker was clearly built to withstand a nuclear blast; Louis had to admit that this was a good place for it, too, nestled in the middle of nowhere in a mountain range that would in itself provide some protection, but not from anything supernatural—particularly demonic—and so Niall made it his project to fix that; in his own words, “turn it int’ summat the cunts can’t even fuckin’ _look_ at.” Iron rods reinforced the walls, and sections of PVC pipe filled with rock salt and “a few other bits ‘n’ bobs” lined the floor and ceiling. (Later, Louis would also learn that the same general principle had been used to bury a permanent salt line about a foot down around the entire house, when he’d been trying to dig a hole for a fire maple Niall had asked him to plant and had hit something so hard it rattled his teeth, and Niall had laughed at him and said, “Sorry, sorry, forgot it was there. A few feet back and you’re grand”). Sigils and symbols of every variety imaginable were carefully painted on each wall, with particular attention to a huge, intricate Devil’s trap on the floor, but all of these precautionary measures were “a bit of an eyesore, really,” and so Niall had put up drywall and laid down carpet. The ceiling had been his next project when he’d been injured, and so he never really got around to covering the gloomy grey concrete, and when he wanted something put down there he got Louis to do it.

Smaller-scale indications of doomsday preparation were scattered throughout the house itself, hardly noticeable except to a careful observer. Deadbolts were affixed to every door.Trap doors and compartments concealed behind paintings stored weapons and artifacts of every imaginable variety; Louis had no idea how Niall acquired the majority of them (many of which probably ought to be in museums) and Niall would just shrug when he asked, saying something like, “I have my ways,” and leaving it at that. Past that, though, the house was really pretty inviting. Niall had preserved the original wood details and molding, the exposed beams and paneling, and the whole interior had a sort of glow from the warm-toned cedar that made up practically every surface. While the tin stove in the center of the kitchen couldn’t be lit without filling the house with smoke, it gave the suggestion of a kind of Old West tableau: a family huddled around for warmth in the winter; strips of dried and salted meat hanging from the rafters in the small wooden shed set slightly apart from the main house; a trek into the woods to collect firewood. All that kind of Little House on the Prairie shit Louis’ mom used to read to him sometimes.

From the deck, the front door opened right into the kitchen, which had a decently-sized oak table against one wall, which featured a variety of novelty clocks, and a collection of chairs sat around it.  Niall had gotten rid of the doors in most of the downstairs, many of which had broken hinges or knobs, and so the kitchen opened into the living room/library/study (probably so large, Niall thought, because the whole family would have slept in the one room when the house was built—probably late in the 19th century). The wall on the right side of the kitchen adjoined a small but functional bathroom, (there was also an outhouse, but Niall had sealed it up and used it mostly for storage), and on the right side of that, Niall’s bedroom. On the far end of the house, across from the front door,  a narrow staircase led up to the second floor, where there were a couple of spare rooms, both with beds, and more of the same: books and weapons and supplies.

One of those rooms currently contains Harry, who has scurried off to it every single time Louis has come near him since they got back to Niall’s after sneaking Louis out of the hospital to avoid discharge paperwork and the police who were still lingering despite Liam’s efforts to throw them off. It had been eerie, how no hospital staff had seemed to notice the four of them hurrying down the hallways, three sets of squeaking shoes and one pair of rubber tires (Louis had balked at the wheelchair, but after almost passing out upon standing he’d grumbled and acquiesced) apparently going unheard. Louis suspected—no, knew—it was connected to the pinched expression Harry was wearing, glancing furtively from side to side as they passed room after room.

Louis had slept for most of the drive back, relieved to find himself in the backseat of the Camaro. Niall was driving, having left his car with a friend—Perrie, Louis was pretty sure he’d said, although he’d initially heard _Harry_ , which startled him and which he didn’t want to think about—and Louis was lulled by the rhythm of highway and occasional murmured conversation that he couldn’t quite pick up on.

He’s not quite sure how long it’s been; somewhere in the ballpark of three days, he figures. The time blurs together in a muddy smear, and he finds himself frequently nodding off to some in-between state of sleep, where he’s aware enough for his dreams to be strange and difficult to distinguish from reality. It’s frustrating, and when he is awake, he chugs cup after cup of coffee until he’s jittery and spastic, desperate to fling the door open and bound down the driveway towards the lake and dunk his head in it, algae be damned, but Niall’s got them all on house arrest until they have a solid plan of attack, and when Louis had tried to protest, the look on Niall’s face had silenced him immediately, and so Niall’s threat to lock him in the bunker was entirely unnecessary.

He knows it’s the smart thing, and has rarely, if ever, wanted to get out of Niall’s house, but their planning never goes anywhere concrete, and every time Niall and Liam leave him with Harry—who’s sat silently through every conversation, responding with one-word answers when someone (Liam or Niall) asks him a direct question—he bolts up the stairs. Louis’ lungs are still too weak for him to follow without potentially asphyxiating himself, which is almost certainly why Harry does it.

Despite his building frustration with Harry and his ingrained stubbornness, Louis knows he has to be the one to reach across the aisle. When he’s been awake enough to think clearly, he’s been mulling it over, again and again: what Harry told him in the hospital, and what it means. The conversation becomes dreamlike and liquid in hindsight, pushing through to the forefront of his mind every time he lets his subconscious roam, and the shimmery, viscous quality to it makes him worry that it didn’t happen at all, that it was one of the impossible things his morphine-addled mind had dreamed up while he was unconscious, like his mother brushing his hair back from his face, or his father teaching him to throw a football.

But Harry’s acting so strangely—Liam has commented on it, more than once—that Louis knows, in his gut, that it was real, and that he’s going to have to figure out some way to confront it, and, moreover, figure out what the fuck it means.

These are the things Louis knows: Harry is a demon; Harry became a demon because he sold his soul as a child to save his sister; Harry was tortured in Hell by the same demon who possessed Louis; Harry is terrified of said demon; Harry has actively defied her anyway to save Louis’ life. Images of Harry frozen, of Harry walking towards him at Caroline’s command, of Harry dropping to his knees in a filthy bathroom, repeat on a loop as if the Little Mermaid slides in the viewfinder he’d had as a kid have been replaced with a series of altogether more disturbing scenes that he can’t stand to look at for too long but also can’t keep out.

And then there are the things he doesn’t know, which are even more troublesome. _Do I trust him?_ he wonders. He remembers realizing he had, thinking he was about to die by Harry’s hand, and he considers the fact that he’s alive right now purely because Harry had ignored what Caroline told him to do, and, instead of fleeing, had saved Louis’ life; had been, to hear Niall tell it, distraught. It sort of feels like he’s doing a connect-the-dots and there’s just one left, but that he can’t make himself draw the line and hovers just on the edge of the complete picture. He has all the parts necessary for trust, but the distance between that and the choice to trust feels impossible.

As always, it seems, the decision is made for him.

He lies on the couch, staring at the way the moonlight turns the wood a kind of green, and checks the clock on the coffee table: 3:05. He’s wide awake and a little nervous, edgy; the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he grasps for what he remembers of the dream he was just having, but comes up empty-handed and unsettled.

A clear, high crashing sound, sharp as a gunshot, rings out behind him. Without seeing, he knows it’s Harry—soft swearing confirms it—and he knows, even though he’s sleep-muddled and generally _off_ , that he shouldn’t scare him away. He waits, silent and still, listens to the light clink of glass being swept up, Harry cursing under his breath, and thinks, _I hope he’s wearing shoes_.

He hears the glass go into the trash can, and then the uneven shuffle of footsteps moving towards the stairs, and a pained exhale he wouldn’t catch were he not holding his breath. He does catch it, though, and, before he can think about it, he says, “Did you get glass in your foot?”

A moment of stillness, and then he hears Harry say, with a wobble in his voice that might be wary or sheepish, or both, “Um. Yeah, I did. Sorry, I tried to clean it up.”

Harry’s apologizing for hurting himself; it’s another piece for Louis to connect, he knows, and he sits up, blinking rapidly to help his eyes adjust to the dim light. “Stay there,” he says. “Or, wait, can you come over here?”

He sees the bob of Harry’s head as he nods, the careful way he limps over to the sofa the very second Louis had told him to. That’s a piece, too. He hesitates once he’s there, and Louis is momentarily fixated on the expanse of his skin; Harry’s only in boxer shorts, long and lean and pale in the moonlight. Louis could reach out and touch, if he decided to.

He clears his throat. “Let’s see, then,” he says, gesturing to the cushion next to him and scooting over a little. “This is becoming a routine,” he jokes weakly, thinking about the last time Harry was sat bleeding on this couch next to Louis, barely a week ago.

“Sorry,” Harry says again, and crosses his legs so that Louis can see the bottom of one foot, where there’s a tiny glimmer that catches in the sparse light. Louis reaches for his Swiss army knife in the outside pouch of the bag on the floor next to him, its contents already spilling out and spreading even though he’s only been here a few days and has been asleep for a lot of it. It’s like the mess is sentient, like he always tries to tell Niall when he gripes about Louis’ clothes all over his floor and _does he look like a maid to Louis_ , who says he’d look good in the outfit, and they laugh and stop talking about it.

Louis closes his hand around the knife, straightening. Harry looks hesitant, quizzical; maybe a little scared. “It’s got tweezers,” Louis says, to reassure him, and notices the way Harry’s shoulders drop slightly. He lowers his gaze to where the minute shard is embedded in Harry’s skin, and, flipping open the tweezer attachment, he goes for it, grasping smoothly on the first try; let no one say he’s got shitty aim. “Got it,” he says, depositing the shard in the ashtray on the coffee table (he pines, momentarily, for a cigarette) and closing the knife. “Doesn’t look like it’s bleeding.”

“Thanks,” Harry says. His foot is still in Louis’ lap. Louis doesn’t really feel one way or another about feet, but he finds himself looking at Harry’s anyway. _Big feet_ , his brain sniggers, and he swallows. It’s a nice foot, he guesses. Not all cracked and rough like his get. Something catches his eye, and he cranes his neck around for a closer look.

“Harold,” he says, “do you have the word _big_ tattooed on your big toe?”

He can feel the air shift around them, when Harry giggles, ridiculous and lovely. _He’s lovely_ , Louis thinks, absently, and can’t help but flick his gaze over the long body in front of him, the curls of ink, mismatched and strange like they’d all been spur-of-the-moment decisions that really shouldn’t suit him but somehow do.

“Yes it is,” Harry says, a little laughter in his voice. “I thought it was funny.”

Louis furrows his brow. “You’ve got a butterfly on your stomach, too. Do the puns never end?”

“It’s a moth,” Harry says, with the slightest hint of indignance. “There’s a difference.” He splays one big hand over the _moth_ on his belly. _Big hands_ , Louis’ brain chimes in. “And puns are great, shut it.”

“You,” Louis huffs, “are, hands-down, the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met.”

Harry goes still. “Person,” he repeats, quietly.

 _Huh?_ Louis thinks, and then, _oh_. “Um,” he says, “yeah.”

“You’ve never called me that before.”

Louis shrugs and rubs the back of his neck, averting his eyes. “Would you prefer I didn’t?”

“No, I…” Harry trails off. “Nevermind. Where were we, you making fun of my tattoos?”

“They are ridiculous,” Louis points out, almost reaching out to touch. His skin looks warm; it _is_ warm, he remembers, and smooth. “What on earth were you thinking?”

Harry shrugs, hand still flat on his belly. “I like ‘em. It’s nice to get to...control how your body looks.”

 _Not your body._ Louis remembers, with a sharp, sudden heave that makes him lurch forward, almost falling off the couch, that the body Harry’s wearing belongs to someone else. “Your vessel must be happy about that,” he grits out through his teeth, willing his heart rate to calm down at the nagging, insistent memories of kissing Harry, touching him, wanting him, and all the time it’s been another person’s body. He can’t look at him, hot with shame. _How could you have forgotten?_

“About that,” Harry says, a little pleadingly, like he’s noticed how Louis’ hands have balled up into fists. He can’t make himself unclench them, but he nods, and Harry takes a deep breath, as though he’s about to plunge to the ocean floor and needs as much oxygen as he can give himself. His voice shakes when he speaks. “Um. So. I told you about...a lot of stuff, the other day, but there’s a part I didn’t? I mean, there are a few parts I didn’t tell you, I’m not sure, but um, I guess...I should um, tell you this. I only just remembered, really, a lot of it, so that’s why, but uh, yeah…”

“Go on,” Louis urges, his nails digging into his palms. “Explain.”

“I died before my deal was up,” Harry says, adopting that same unnerving flat tone from the hospital. The room immediately goes several degrees colder. “Only a couple of months, though.”

“Uh huh.” Louis isn’t sure where this is going.

“So,” Harry says, “I didn’t...like, I didn’t go in the usual way, with the Hellhounds and all.”

Louis’ mouth is dry. “What happened?” He thinks about bodies sliced to ribbons, every single organ shredded, barely recognizable. He remembers one who had to be identified by their dental records.

Harry continues. “I got, uh. Well, I’m fuzzy on the details, but from what I understand someone beat me up and hit my head pretty hard. So when I got to hospital, they told my parents it wasn’t likely I was ever gonna wake up, you know?

“But, um, I think, after Gemma...like, they were so certain she was going to die, and I think they were hoping for another miracle. I mean, I never told them it wasn’t a miracle, obviously. So they insisted I be kept on life support even though the doctors said I was pretty much a vegetable.” Harry looks up, and Louis meets his pleading gaze, sees how Harry is willing him to understand, and realizes, once again, that he wants to, despite everything that tells him he shouldn’t. “So, um, even though a long time passed...down there, before I, um, turned, you could say, it wasn’t long up here, so…”

Louis blinks, unable to stop himself from raking his eyes over Harry, head to toe, the oddness of his knees and the soft puffs of flesh above the waistband of his shorts, the strange assortment of tattoos, the barely there stubble and heartbreaking beauty of his face, and he says, hearing the absurd, childish hope in his voice, “So this body…”

“Mine,” Harry says. “Nicked it back from the hospital. I s’pose I’m a bit sentimental.” The wry twist of his lips— _his lips_ , not someone else’s he’s stolen—makes Louis’ breath catch in his throat and his knuckles go white from how much he wants to reach across the gap between them and kiss until they’re bruised, until they show that Louis was there.

“You—” he says dumbly, and rubs his palms across the couch cushion, for something to feel.

“I can prove it,” Harry says, softly. “My second name was Styles, you can look it up. Spontaneously vanishing whilst in a vegetative state is apparently quite newsworthy, so.”

Louis doesn’t want to—he believes him, and that’s another thought that knocks the breath out of him—but he digs Liam’s phone he’d stolen earlier out of his pocket with rapidly dampening hands and fumbles his way to Google, fingers slipping, types in _Harry Styles_ and it’s the least patient he’s ever felt, waiting for the results to load.

“There’s a memorial page, as well.” Harry’s voice is barely audible. “The internet was pretty new, so it looks a bit weird.”

There is; Louis clicks on it, and it’s awful—all the text is clustered in the top left corner, the background is a garish shade of green, and half the images are broken, but he doesn’t need to see them all: just one, of Harry, with an arm slung around the shoulder of a girl who looks quite a bit like him—the one he sold his soul for, Gemma, it must be _—_ and a smile so broad that his mouth seems too large for his face, which is a little soft and ringed by wild curls, all at once light-years from the Harry sitting in the dark next to him and completely, unmistakably the same.

 _He could be lying still_ , a tiny, yelping part of him shrieks. _He could’ve just assumed his host’s identity—_

“Shut up,” he says, out loud.

“Sorry,” Harry says.

Louis flushes. “No, not you, my brain was just doing a stupid thing. Sorry. Fuck.”

He can’t stop staring at the picture, trying to zoom in as close as he can to confirm what he already knows: that Harry’s telling him the truth, has been telling him the truth all along. _Ethically sourced meat-suit,_ he remembers, the slosh of drunken want in the dark, the way Harry’s cheeks hollowed around the straw of his stupid fruity drink. How much Louis has wanted him, all along. How much Louis wants him now. How small the reasons he shouldn’t seem in comparison.

He looks up. The light catching Harry’s face— _his face, all his_ —is dappled, filtered through branches of the trees right outside the window across from them, and it catches on one of Harry’s eyes (his eyes, he realizes, in both forms), the bow of his lips, an errant curl, the knob of a knee, none of them belonging to anyone else, nothing stolen.

“I…” Harry says, and Louis revels in the gorgeous tone of his voice, every little thing suddenly worthy of note. Every tic and mannerism he’d reluctantly found endearing is Harry’s, and maybe this was the last piece, and the wild, rapidly expanding feeling in his chest is what it feels like to see the whole picture he’s been avoiding. “You called me a person, a minute ago.”

“I did,” Louis says.

A soft smile alights on Harry’s face, but his eyes are nervous. “I feel…” he says, and pauses for a long time, chewing on his lip, making it blanch and swell. Louis shifts, and hopes Harry doesn’t notice. Or maybe he hopes he does. He’s not sure. “I feel more like a person around you, you know?”

“I don’t,” Louis says. _Tell me._

“Um, just that...well, like, I remember more, about being human. And I remember better. Like, I hadn’t remembered my second name for a long time. It’s like...I knew, before, the basic details, but it didn’t feel so much like those memories were mine. And it’s still not...like, I’m not human, but I remember what it was like.”

His voice goes tight and choked at the end, and his eyes shine, gone deep red, and Louis thinks, _he’s a demon_ , and then, resolutely, _I don’t care_. Louis isn’t a saint; for all he knows, his body count is higher than Harry’s, and what does it matter anymore? Both sets of eyes belong to Harry; so does everything else about him, all the odd behaviors and complexities and contradictions that make up a being that, while not human, is, Louis realizes, a person.

“Are you okay?” Harry says, urgently, leaning in and making the light shift across his face again, new features cast into focus: a mole near his mouth, the sharp cut of his jaw, the fullness of his bottom lip and the saliva-shine Louis can’t look away from. It must be obvious; Louis’ cheeks burn with how naked he feels, how open and desperate.

“I’m fine,” Louis hears himself say weakly. “Just...a lot to take in.”

Harry’s right dimple pops.

“What,” Louis says, the thump of his pulse frantic.

“A lot to take in,” Harry giggles.

Oh. “Jesus Christ,” Louis groans, squeezing his own thighs harsh enough that he’ll probably leave bruises. “What am I gonna do with you?”

The bare honesty in Harry’s voice when he says, “Whatever you want,” feels like it makes time stand still, like the room around them is holding its breath.

“What—” Louis starts, “What do—”

“Sorry,” Harry says, “I just—”

“Me too,” Louis says, swallowing.

“Yeah?” Harry says. He sounds breathless; his eyes are wide, dark, inhuman and lovely all the same, and Louis can’t look away from them.

“Yeah. Can I…” He loses his voice for a second. “Can I kiss you?”

Harry blinks at him, and his eyes shift back to human, the green overtaken by blown pupil. “Yes,” he says, after a moment, looking a little dazed. “Please.” He licks his lips.

“So polite,” Louis teases, but he can’t disguise the desperation in his tone as he crawls the few feet over to Harry, knocking a pillow to the floor. Their knees bump together, something monumental about the muted crack it makes, louder than maybe it should be.

Harry shudders, his eyes falling shut. Louis can see the faint pink tinge to his cheeks, the rapid way his chest rises and falls. He’s so close. “Wait,” Harry mumbles. “Are you sure? I don’t want to do anything you don’t want.”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Louis had just said so, and every second he’s not touching Harry is vividly painful. He holds himself back, though, knows this is important even if he can’t fully articulate why. “Promise,” he says. “Tell you what, we can even make a deal if you want. I’ll tell you if I wanna stop, you do the same.”

Harry blinks. “I’d...yeah,” he says. _Deals make sense to him_ , Louis thinks. _Deals are what he can rely on._

Louis grips Harry’s forearms in his hands and leans back, willing Harry to follow, to get on top of him and cage him in. _I trust you_ , he thinks, _let me show you._ “Great. It’s a deal.”

He licks his own lips pointedly, and bites the bottom one, just a little, watches Harry’s pupils dilate and a grin stretch over his face, leaning down so Louis can just barely feel the heat of his breath washing against his face when he says, “Kiss me, you fool.”

So Louis does, straining his neck up, up the last few inches and touching, finally, _finally_ the way he wants to, luxurious and searing-hot. Harry kisses desperate, gasping in between bruising presses and harsh sucks that wrack Louis’ whole body, helpless to the way they make him surge up, whining, answering with his own sharp bites and swipes of tongue. It feels like neither of them know how to hold back, how to gentle this; some part of Louis shivers uncomfortably, thinks _you need to be careful_ , but Harry’s so loud in his ears, so overwhelming to every one of his senses, smelling of sweat but mostly _heat_ , burning up under his mouth, and it makes him reckless, shameless, rut his hips up in time with the pushes of his mouth and want to cry from how good it feels, how much more he wants.

His hands need something to grab, and they latch onto the softness of Harry’s hips, bruising. The scene moves in flashes: Harry’s mouth at his jaw, sucking so hard Louis almost cries with it; Harry stripping off his shirt and skimming his fingertips up Louis’ sides, making him squirm and squawk and bat his hands away; his hand fisted in Harry’s hair, holding him in place as he bites at his mouth and greedily swallows his whines; Harry’s knee pressing into his thigh so fucking painful, going to leave a big fucking bruise, and Louis loving it; Harry everywhere, inescapable.

“God,” he chokes, when he gets a reprieve, gasping for air and tasting his own sweat, “you—”

“Clothes off,” Harry says, impatient and churlish. He sits up on his heels and pops the button on Louis’ jeans.

Louis wriggles beneath him, helpless to how his eyes flutter momentarily shut at the friction. “Can’t move,” he grumbles. “You’re squishing me.”

“Sorry,” Harry says, sincerely, and knee-walks back so fast Louis almost gets whiplash. “Off,” he repeats.

“Sheesh, demanding,” Louis says, wriggling out of his jeans as he does.

“How do you sleep in your clothes?” Harry wonders aloud, staring at him. “Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“Nah,” Louis says, and thinks. “Maybe. Used to it.” He nods toward Harry. “You clearly take a different approach.” He tilts his head, thinks, _I’ve never seen him sleep._ “Do you sleep?” he blurts out.

Harry frowns. “Yes,” he says, gaze following as Louis pulls each foot out and discards the pants on the floor, squirming a little under the gaze and knowing he must be obvious, straining at his boxers obscenely, probably flushed down his neck by now. He’s too hot for it, and he doesn’t know that he cares. “I sleep,” Harry says. “Sometimes. Do you?”

“You’ve seen me sleep.” Louis swallows, and toys with the waistband of his shorts. He’s waiting for Harry to make a move, but he’s gone all still again.

“I’ve seen you unconscious,” Harry counters, beginning to inch back towards him, so _slow._ “Not the same.”

Louis doesn’t have the patience for semantic arguments right now. He wants Harry’s hands on him. “Stop talking shit,” he says, as firmly as he can manage with his voice traitorously wavering from how much he wants, “and fuck me, would you?” He takes a deep breath and flips over, arching up, uncaring of how wanton he looks. He wants Harry’s hands on him yesterday, wanted them on him the minute they met, has wanted more every time they’ve been on him, wanted this.

“Are you—” Harry stutters, unsure. “Are you sure?”

In lieu of a response, Louis rolls his eyes into the couch cushion and reaches behind him to tug his boxers down, swallowing a gasp at how good the cool air feels. Harry doesn’t touch, though. Louis tries to look back at him, and it hurts his neck. This position probably isn’t any good for his breathing, but he wants it so badly he can’t breathe anyway.

He’s really not expecting the next thing that comes out of Harry’s mouth, although he should be. “Is that...is that a Devil’s trap? On your arse?” Abruptly, the mood has shifted again; Harry’s tone is light and teasing, a little incredulous, and Louis laughs for a while before he can say anything, climbing up onto his elbows and shaking with it.

“Listen,” he says, once he catches his breath. “Mistakes were made, alright? And it’s technically a pentagram.”

Harry makes a sound halfway between a snort and a giggle. “Nice passive voice.”

Blindly, Louis reaches back as if to slap him, but just ends up pawing at empty air. “Shut up. It’s a good place for it, you don’t want ‘em super visible.”

“It makes it so you can’t be possessed, right?”

Louis squirms. Hookups have asked—often—about the tattoo (“Satanic tramp stamp,” one particularly memorable one had called it), but this attention feels different; it’s knowing, penetrating. “Yeah,” he says. “Used to wear a necklace, but you can cut string. I mean, you can cut through this, too, hence the placement.” He’d gotten it on his 18th birthday, and never showed it to his father; he kept wearing the necklace he’d given him until he wasn’t around to ask him why he’d stopped. _No Dad in bed_ , he chides himself. _Absolutely not_.

Harry keeps talking. “So someone would have to stab you in the arse if they wanted to possess you.”

Louis rolls his shoulders. “Don’t get any ideas,” he warns.”

“I wasn’t!” Harry insists, and pauses. “Will it burn me if I touch it?” he wonders aloud.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Is this you asking to touch my ass?”

When he cranes around to get a look at Harry’s face, the wicked grin he sees sends another hot flash through him. “Can I?”

Louis groans and shoves his face back into the couch. “ _Jesus Christ_ , yes, I promise, cross my heart and hope to die.” If Harry doesn’t touch him he might explode. It would be a really undignified way to go.

The brush of Harry’s broad, wide palm over the tattoo makes him keen, pushing back into it. _Yeah,_ he thinks, _yeah, yeah, yeah._

“I can touch it,” Harry says, sounding pleased. “I think my hand is stuck, though. Tragic.”

“You asshole,” Louis says, and twists around, surging upwards to bite at his mouth, laying a hand on top of the one Harry’s got spread out on his ass, infuriatingly still. He squeezes, willing Harry to get the message and _do something._

He does; a blunt, hot finger dips down and snags at Louis’ hole, knocking a gasp out of him. _Yes_ , he thinks wildly, canting his hips backwards into the dry burn. Part of him just wants Harry to hold him down and fuck him right now, tear him to pieces and make him cry. That’s a self-destructive impulse, he knows, recognizes it from more nights than he’d care to admit, and a month ago he might think Harry capable of it, but now he’s not so sure. There’s more to this than scratching an itch, more than what Louis wants.

Harry’s humid breath and the way his lips catch intermittently as he drags his mouth over right where Louis knows the tattoo is—that’s _more_ , that’s something that’s both mind-numbingly hot and terrifying. Louis wants more of it, greedy and starving. The way Harry’s touching him feels like nothing else ever has before, like he’s under his skin. His whole body is a live wire.

“Look at you,” Harry murmurs. “God, just fucking look at you.”

“Can’t,” Louis pants. “Eyes don’t work like that.”

Harry laughs into the crack of his ass, which is insanely dirty and impossibly hot. “You’re incredible,” he says, low and serious, and Louis can’t tell what’s better: the words or the way they vibrate so fucking close to where he’s aching for it, and he decides it’s probably both. He feels drunk.

“You’re a fucking _tease_ ,” Louis grits out, squirming and fighting not to just thrust himself back against Harry’s face. He’s holding onto his last shreds of dignity with his fingernails, but he’s ready to let go if asked.

When Harry pulls back, and he whimpers, can’t stop himself. _No,_ he thinks, _no, no, come back._ He feels adrift without the contact, cold and lost, suddenly ashamed of himself.  “I—” Harry’s voice shakes. “Don’t call me that, okay?” It’s a little above a whisper. Without thinking, Louis nods, flips over so he can see Harry’s face, reach up and cup his cheek and run his thumb over the fine bone under the skin. It’s like the world keeps tilting on its axis, the way Harry’s moods change, and Louis is pulled helplessly along with him as if there’s a rope around both their waists.

“Okay,” Louis hears himself say. “Okay, baby.” He doesn’t know where the word comes from, but he likes how it sounds. Harry closes his eyes, presses into Louis’ palm with a low, needy noise. Louis can’t stop himself from leaning up to kiss him, but he stops half an inch away from Harry’s mouth, their noses bumping, and he says, “Okay?”

Harry seals their mouths together, and it’s—it’s different, again, wet and slow, overwhelming from the start. “You’re,” Louis says against Harry’s mouth, and is silenced for several long minutes by the insistent press of Harry’s tongue. It’s never felt like this, not ever. “You’re something else,” he says. _You’re everything,_ he thinks. _Everything in the world._ “Fuck me,” he says, ducking to kiss at Harry’s bare shoulder, down to the swallows, tongue laving over the slightly raised lines. “Please?”

“I—” Harry says, the worry clear in his tone.

“You won’t hurt me,” Louis says, biting gently at a nipple that hardens under his teeth as Harry inhales so sharply it must hurt. “Promise. We have a deal, remember? I’m not gonna let you.” He feels Harry’s ribs heave under his hands. The filthy, seemingly involuntary grind of Harry’s hips downward punches a moan out of him, and he scrabbles at the skin he can reach, which rips a destroyed noise from Harry that Louis wants to hear on a loop forever. He feels the moment Harry gives in, slumping boneless against him and panting into Louis’ neck.

“Lube in the bag,” he remembers, grappling for it blindly. He’s maybe never been more thankful that he keeps it on hand; Harry’s too intent on not hurting him for Louis to convince him to fuck him dry, and it’s been _forever_. Since before he first met Harry. He struggles to remember: was it three months ago? Four? It’s barely been a week since they bound themselves together, and that alone feels like an eternity. Finally, blessedly, he feels a little tube, nearly drops it in his hurry to get it up on the couch between them, get them in motion again. “Here,” he says, a little unnecessarily, his breath hitching when Harry picks it up.

He can’t take his eyes off Harry’s fingers, how long and thick they are, ringed in silver and holding the tube of Astroglide as if it might shatter. How can someone be so powerful and so gentle at once? So capable of hurt and so wary of causing it? The cool, slick press of a finger into him, slow and sure, derails that train of thought; all Louis can do is make a noise of approval and push back onto it. It doesn’t feel good, exactly, it just _feels_ , but the anticipation is getting him so hot he can barely stand it, sucking in deep gulps of air and shifting his hips, his cock stiffening by the second.

When Harry uses his free hand to hook Louis’ left leg over his shoulder, he moans and lets him, nearly sobs when Harry twists another finger in at the same moment, screwing deep enough into him that he can feel the unforgiving metal of the rings at the base of Harry’s fingers bumping up against the smarting, stretched skin around his hole, and he jacks himself fast and rough, just so he can think again.

“No,” Harry says, and ducks down to bite Louis’ bottom lip, which stretches Louis’ hip in a way that really fucking hurts and startles a moan out of him. He bats Louis’ hand away. “Not yet,” he says, leaning back. Louis can’t look at his face; he squeezes his eyes shut and gasps as Harry doubles the pace, fucking him ruthlessly with three fingers, and—

“Ready,” he pants, “c’mon, fuck, _please—_ ”

Harry doesn’t even respond, just yanks his fingers out, shoves his boxers down his thighs, grabs the backs of both of Louis’ knees, his right hand slipping a little from the lube, and presses forward. The first long push hurts; Louis has to grit his teeth and breathe through it, but it’s a good hurt, like the radiating ache in the minutes after popping a dislocated joint back into place and everything is as it should be again. _This is right,_ he thinks, frantically, clawing at Harry’s back and listening to the sharp shocked sounds of their breathing. _This is how we were supposed to end up._

“God,” Harry chokes out, above him, his hips stilling, most of the way in. “You feel…” He can’t seem to finish the sentence, his eyes squeezed shut, and the moon provides just enough light to reflect off his teeth where they dig into his full bottom lip, to show in an expanse of soft and bruised blues the way his chest heaves, damp and hot when Louis runs his palms over it.

 _Look at me,_ Louis thinks. Like he’s heard him, Harry’s eyes snap open, hot crimson stare boring straight into Louis’, and Louis holds his gaze, steady, a little mesmerized by the way he can see how overwhelmed Harry is in how dark they are; they’re just as expressive like this, he realizes, wet and wide as Harry bites his lip and furrows his brow, his hips shifting in minute little fucking motions, and _yes_.

“Good,” Louis says, finding his voice. “You feel so fucking good, babe, come on.” His fingernails rake down Harry’s broad back, and he feels his dick twitch inside him. “Give it to me,” he says, and thinks, _let me give you this_.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Harry mumbles, eyes still wide open like he’s afraid to blink. “You have to stop me if I hurt you, you have to.”

They’ve been over this, but Louis doesn’t bitch at him, just reassures. “I will, I will, I promise, we made a deal, remember? You’re not hurting me, come on.” He tries to thump Harry’s back with his heels and finds his legs have gone a little numb and tingly, and that he likes it.

It’s way too much, right from the start. Harry isn’t rough, exactly, but he’s unrelenting; the deep, dirty grind of his hips doesn’t falter for a second as he hitches Louis’ legs up higher, shifting the angle until he hits it right and knocks gasps out of him. He doesn’t let him catch his breath before he’s going double-time, folding Louis right in half and screwing into him so hard and fast it hurts, it hurts a whole fucking lot, but it’s also the best thing Louis’ felt in he doesn’t know how long; it feels the _most_ , more than any broken bone or bathroom blowjob or any of the rest of the stuff of Louis’ small, violent life, and he sobs with how good that is, how much he doesn’t want it to stop, how he would give Harry anything he wanted as long as he kept him like this, pinned under his weight and pounding into him like he’ll die without it.

“Fuck,” Harry mutters, dipping his head to bite next to Louis’ nipple, hard. He’s showing no signs of physical strain—unlike Louis, whose legs are jerking and trembling and whose hands are scrabbling for purchase at anything and everything—but the sounds he lets out are stuttering and overwhelmed, like maybe this feels as much for him as it does for Louis, and that— _that_ —is the thought that drives him over the edge, Harry’s hand only stripping his cock for half a minute before he’s sobbing and slicking up his own belly and chest, an orgasm that feels wrenched out of him and leaves him winded, like he’s just come out of a hard-won fight.

Only it’s different, because Harry’s still fucking him, and it hurts now more than it feels good, but the look on Harry’s face—eyes closed, lip going white under his teeth, brow pinched and pained-looking—makes Louis go lax and pliant, reach up to stroke his thumb over Harry’s cheekbone and meet his gaze when he opens his eyes, look straight into the depths of them, endless and a little terrifying, and say, quietly, “Harry.”

Something in Harry’s expression snaps. The feel of him coming inside Louis is so much less than the way he looks, shattered and scared, how immediately desperate Louis feels to put his arms around him and cradle him close. So that’s what he does.

After a minute where all he can hear and feel are their halting gasps, just slightly off time with one another, Louis registers the way Harry’s trembling against him, the wetness at the crook of his neck that isn’t just sweat. Harry cries silently, but it wracks his whole body, bouncing Louis along with it, still impaled on his softening cock and getting distinctly uncomfortable, but occupied entirely by the sobbing demon on top of him. Somehow, he’s not panicked—he knows what to do, although he doesn’t know how, and he lets his instincts guide him.

“Hey, shh,” he says, petting at Harry’s sweaty hair, gently sweeping it to one side and off his shoulders, out of his face. “Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, but he asks it anyway. His palms skid down Harry’s sweaty back and up again, from the dip of his spine to his shoulderblades. The muscles are tight, must be painful, and Harry gasps a little when he experimentally presses into a knot. He can’t tell if it’s a good gasp, though, in the midst of the crying, so he stops and goes back to stroking him steadily, murmuring nonsense into the join of his shoulder and neck.

“Sorry,” Harry manages, after a long while. His voice is thick. “Just...overwhelmed.” He shifts so he’s supporting most of his own weight, pulls out of Louis with a wince that Louis matches—he’s throbbing, sure to be too sore to walk much tomorrow. If he regrets this in the morning (or, rather, later in the morning—the clock registers 4:45), he’ll hate not being able to escape the reminder, but for now, he lets himself like it.

“Yeah,” Louis says. He feels Harry go still against him, breaths steadier, and he wriggles out from under him to lie on his side and keep petting down the length of him, pressed close even though it’s too hot and there isn’t enough air. He slaps Harry’s shoulder lightly; nothing more than a pat, really. “Good job,” he jokes, hoping to get Harry to crack a smile.

He does; a small one, but a smile nonetheless. His eyes have gone back to green, pupils beginning to shrink but still huge. “We should talk,” he says, quietly, and looks away from Louis, his expression going closed-off and flat again.

“Not right now,” Louis decides. He knows it’s the right decision because it takes that look off Harry’s face and gets him to meet his gaze again. The sweat is starting to cool on his back, where he’s not pressed against Harry, and he shivers.

“Cold?” Harry asks.

“Little.” There’s a blanket here somewhere, but Louis doesn’t know where. Harry finds it, though, and drapes it over Louis.

“Good?” he asks. Louis squirms a little so it covers his feet, and sighs.

“Good,” he confirms, sleepy and sated and bold enough, to hook his arm around Harry’s middle and pull them flush together, his lips against Harry’s shoulder. _You make me feel more human, too,_ Louis thinks, and holds it in his mouth while he presses a closed-mouth kiss to Harry’s bicep, somehow both afraid it’ll slip out and afraid it won’t, and he sleeps.

*

Right before Lottie was born, after his mom and Mark got married, they moved into the house he spent most of his childhood in. He’d been nervous about it; he’d always shared a bedroom, and often a bed, with his mom, and change was scary, especially when there was so much of it at once—new stepfather, new sister, new house, new school. But there were three bedrooms in the new house, and Louis got one all to himself.

He loved his room: he loved that he had space to put up all his posters, with room to spare; he loved his Power Rangers sheets and comforter (although occasionally he’d worry that he was too old for them, especially once he was going into fourth grade the shortest in his class, including the girls); he loved that if you looked really hard outside his window on a clear day you could just make out New York City; he loved that it had a little door that led to a crawlspace that he wasn’t supposed to go in but did anyway, making it his secret hideout; he loved that it was _his_ , most of all.

His mom made him pick up his room once a week, on Sundays, and in the days between it became a disaster zone without Louis meaning it to. Mess just happened, and his mom would get exasperated with him frequently, but never for too long; the same went for Mark, who got them the house and put Louis’ bed and chest of drawers where Louis told him and helped him put up his posters, and, the first year he was with Louis’ mom, got him a boombox for his birthday and a whole pile of CDs for Christmas the day after. Jay had had a boyfriend before who wanted him to call him Dad and Louis had refused, point-blank, but he started calling Mark Dad without him asking and within a couple of months of them getting married, which made his mom happy, and Louis was proud to have made her smile.

When Fizzy was born, Lottie was old enough to have her own room, too, and so Fiz took the spot in the crib in his mom and dad’s room and Lottie took the extra bedroom, which had been used up until then as kind of a junk room. They had a yard sale to get rid of some of the extra stuff so that there was space for Lottie, and Mark ruffled Louis’ hair and told him he was a “natural salesman” when he showed him how much money was in his box and added it up to $122.25. Louis got to keep twenty dollars of that, and put it straight in his bank, which was shaped like Batman, to spend when he figured out something important to buy with it. That twenty was still in the bank when the house burned down, and Louis never saw it again.

Louis got to keep his room to himself even when the twins were born and Fizzy and Lottie started sharing, but it wasn’t too long before his mom and dad decided that Daisy and Phoebe really needed a room of their own, and so Louis would have to share with his sisters. He had thrown an honest-to-god temper tantrum—it was _his_ room, it had always been _his_ room—and gotten put in the corner for the first time since he was seven, where he stood for more than an hour before he caved, sniffling and hugging his mom and apologizing. He was still upset, though, and cried when he took down his posters and helped Mark move his bed into the corner of the living room, after they’d figured out that there was no way three beds would fit in Lottie and Fizzy’s bedroom unless they got bunk beds, which they really couldn’t afford without taking out a payday loan, and they were already in enough debt that that was a bad idea. And so the solution had been reached to move Louis into the living room and block out the area with some screens. After a few weeks of adjustment, Louis found he was okay with it—liked it, even. He could sneak into the kitchen without having to open the squeaky door of his old bedroom, and if he put the TV volume on low he could watch late-night cartoons, as well. He only got caught a few times, and the temporary losses of TV privilege or his scooter were worth it.

He had his own bedroom again, briefly, before his birth father broke the lease in the house in Virginia Beach, but after that, he never had a room that was his, and didn’t sleep alone in a room unless Troy was out on a hunt or elsewhere. He could watch TV as late as he wanted on those nights, and the motels sometimes had cable, but he found himself, distressingly, having difficulty sleeping, no matter how late he stayed up. When they stayed with other hunters—rarely, but sometimes—he always took the couch, which was mostly because he was small enough that it wouldn’t be that uncomfortable, but he also fell asleep faster and easier, then, when he could hear other people moving around in the hallway or even in the room with him. He figured it had something to do with nightmares; he felt safer when there were people around who could protect him, obviously, so it was better when he woke up from a dream where he saw the fire over and over again to be able to look over and see Troy on the other bed, where he knew there was a rifle stashed underneath the frame and a knife under the pillow. But even when his nightmares grew less and less frequent—which, he would admit, correlated strongly with when he started drinking before bed—and he felt confident in his ability to defend himself from any threat that might be lurking in the dark, he still struggled to sleep in a bedroom by himself, and thought, often, about how much he had complained when he’d had to move out of his old room, wondering if, had it not been burned down to nothing, he would still be able to sleep in there.

In the times when he was alone for prolonged periods—after Troy died, before he joined up with Niall; after Zayn left, before Liam asked him to teach him to hunt—he would have to get blackout drunk, or take sleeping pills, or find someone to sleep with who wouldn’t kick him out or leave after they were finished, or some combination thereof, to get the few hours he needed to keep himself running.

*

There’s hair in his mouth. He grimaces, using his tongue and teeth to push it out, but there’s a lot, and it’s really long, some of it getting down his throat and tickling at his tonsils. It’s disgusting; Louis makes an unhappy noise and tries to free his left hand from where it’s trapped beneath some kind of heavy weight, and then the right one from where it’s being gripped by something warm that holds tighter when he struggles and makes a disgruntled noise, the big warmth at Louis’ front shuffling closer to him, soft and good-smelling, like cut grass. Absently, Louis rolls his hips forward into it, moaning a little at the pressure on his morning wood and then gasping at the twinge that shoots through his lower back.

Oh. _Oh._

Harry must feel him freeze, because he stiffens, too, and they press against each other like planks, neither breathing for a long moment that sparks with tension. Louis can’t tell whether he should focus on his dick pressed against the back of Harry’s leg, rock-hard and leaking embarrassingly, or the telltale ache spreading through his whole lower half that reminds him, _oh yeah, Harry fucked you last night, and you loved it_.

“Is that a gun digging into my arse,” Harry says, eventually, “or are you just happy to see me?”

Louis is helpless to the way he begins to shake with laughter, nearly silent with his teeth digging into Harry’s shoulder, the incredible strangeness of everything both terrifying and hilarious. _I fucked a demon,_ he thinks hysterically. _No, wait, a demon fucked me._

“Definitely a gun,” he manages, once he gets his breathing under control and inches his hips backwards just a little, trying to conjure images of all the most disgusting things he’s seen. It’s quite a list. “This was my plan all along.”

Harry snorts. “Seduce me and shoot me in the arse?”

“Exactly.”

“Bit of a shit plan,” Harry says mildly. “Gun wouldn’t kill me.”

“Not _any_ gun,” Louis argues, “but what if I had the Colt?”

“The Colt’s a demon campfire story,” Harry says. “It’s not real.”

“Is too.” Louis feels himself pout slightly.

“Whatever you say,” Harry mumbles. Louis searches for a retort, but the more he wakes up, the less easily the banter comes—he seems to be able to communicate best with Harry when inebriated or half-conscious—and the more he thinks, _oh, shit._ He opens his mouth to say something—he’s not sure what—but, again, Harry beats him to it. “Time to talk now?” he asks, quietly.

Louis swallows, throat tight. “Probably.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. “I lost control of myself.”

“Um,” Louis says. He wasn’t expecting that.

“It won’t happen again,” Harry continues, voice beginning to flatten and dull. “If you want me to go, I will.”

“I don’t want you to,” Louis says, a little surprised at his bald honesty. He frowns. “She can find you if you go, right? Caroline, I mean.”

Harry curls away from him, slightly, in on himself and towards the back of the couch. “Yeah.”

Louis feels something in his chest clench. “So don’t go,” he says. “Help us figure out how to finish her.”

“You shouldn’t,” Harry mutters. “She’s dangerous.”

“I know,” Louis snaps, and then, when he feels Harry’s minute flinch, softens, thinks about the slump of Harry’s shoulders in the chair next to his hospital bed. “I know she is,” he continues, tightening his arm around Harry’s waist. The other one is fully asleep, and will hurt like a bitch when he gets it out from under Harry, but for now, he leaves it. “That’s why we’ve got to stop her, before she hurts anyone else.”

“You don’t know her,” Harry says. “She—she’ll—”

“She’ll what?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says, miserably, “but it’ll be awful.”

Louis sighs. “What you told me at the hospital—”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, muffled into the couch cushion. “I shouldn’t have put that on you. Sorry I’m, like, weird, and unhelpful. You probably didn’t think you were signing on with such a useless headcase of a demon.”

Louis coughs, trying to buy himself more time to locate the words that will appropriately describe his feelings about the situation, before he realizes that there are none, and he should just try not to be an asshole. _Like you have been._ “We all got baggage,” he ends up saying. “It’s not a problem, so you don’t have to feel bad for telling me...stuff. Just…” He closes his mouth, frustrated. “I don’t know the right stuff to say.” He doesn’t know how to have this conversation, and he definitely doesn’t know how to have it when they’re both still mostly-naked and pressed tight together, afraid to move.

“There isn’t right stuff,” Harry murmurs. “I don’t know either.”

“Then cut yourself some slack, huh?”

Harry nudges him. “Only if you do.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Not likely. Listen,” he starts, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry, okay? For all those times I accused you of working for her. And, um, any other dickhead shit I did. And dickhead shit I’ll do in the future, because I absolutely will.” He feels himself grimace. “So. Probably didn’t think you were signing on with a hunter with so many issues, either.”

“No,” Harry says, a tiny smile in his tone. “No, I knew you were a dickhead.”

“Fuck off,” Louis says. “You were just saying a few days ago that my soul was, like, shiny, or something.”

“It is,” Harry insists, voice gone abruptly serious. “The dickheadedness is just a defense mechanism.”

“Aren’t you smart?” Louis says, irritated. “Go on, then, psychoanalyze me some more.” There’s silence; he pauses, and deflates. “See. Old habits die hard.”

“It’s okay,” Harry says, like he means it. “Your bum makes up for it.”

“Hey!” Louis thumps him on the shoulder. “Don’t objectify me.”

“Sorry,” Harry hurries. “I’m—that was—”

 _A bad idea,_ Louis hears, before he says it, and he shushes him. “It was maybe not the best decision either of us have ever made,” he says, “but I wanted it. Did...did you?”

“What? Of course.” He can practically see the little line between Harry’s eyebrows deepening.

Louis sighs. “Just making sure,” he says. “I’m not...good with this kind of stuff. Feelings, I mean. And, like, after. I’m a little out of my depth here.” He chuckles weakly.

“Me too,” Harry says, and squeezes the hand Louis had forgotten he was holding. “I...like you,” he says, awkwardly. “I mean, obviously, but. There’s this thing I don’t know how to explain, this pull. It feels—”

“I know.” Louis noses a little at his hair. “I feel it, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So what do we do about it?”

Louis sighs. “I have no fucking idea,” he admits, “but I’m really fucking hungry, and I don’t think well on an empty stomach.” As if on cue, his stomach rumbles fiercely, and Harry giggles.

“Definitely a monster in there,” Harry says. “You should feed it. I’ll make breakfast.”

*

He knows it was a slim hope that Niall, whose bedroom directly adjoins the living room, hadn’t heard them last night, but when he makes his way, carefully and deliberately, into the kitchen, the mile-wide smirk and brisk, “Sleep well?” Niall greets him with quashes it completely.

“Fuck off,” he grumbles. He did, actually; this is the best-rested he’s been in he doesn’t know how long. Sighing, Louis pulls out the remaining chair and sits, gingerly, giving Niall a warning look as he does and trying to keep from wincing.

Liam coughs; when Louis looks up at him, he’s blushing faintly. From behind them, he can hear Harry opening the fridge and rummaging around. “Bacon and eggs?” he asks, to a murmured chorus of assent. “How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled,” Louis says.

“Over easy,” Niall calls, at the same time.

“Sunny side up, please,” says Liam.

“Um,” Harry says. “Okay.” There’s a clang that must be him taking a pan down from the rack on the ceiling.

“Careful with the front burner,” Louis says, instinctively. “It’s tricky.”

“Thank you.”

“I fixed it,” Niall says. “Not that you’d know, though, Tommo. When was the last time you cooked?”

“I can cook,” Louis argues, even though it’s a lie, and he knows it; he’s oddly embarrassed, all of a sudden. He hears what sounds like Harry cracking eggs into a bowl, and the rapid metallic sound of stirring.

“Easy Mac in the microwave doesn’t count,” Niall says. “But now that we’re all present and accounted for, let’s discuss strategy.”

Louis carefully doesn’t turn to look at Harry, whose noises halt for a brief moment before picking back up again, soon joined by the sizzle of something—bacon, probably—hitting a hot pan.

“Alright,” Liam says, leaning forward a little in the way he does when he’s really focused. Louis stares at the white bandages on his forearms—his burns are healing well, he knows, and Liam has told him not to worry, but Louis feels sick when he thinks about them. The smell of bacon beginning to cook doesn’t particularly help, and he closes his eyes. “What’s the plan?”

“We have a name, now,” Niall says, “so there’s a start. Summoning her should be easy enough. Well, not easy, but y’know.”

“Doable,” Louis supplies.

“Okay,” Liam says. “How do you kill a demon?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Genius question, Agent Payne. Can’t believe no one’s ever asked it before.” Shit. “Sorry,” he says. “There’s the Colt,” he starts, but Niall cuts him off.

“You’ve been looking for that goddamn gun for years, Lou. It may not even exist.”

“You know it exists,” Louis argues. There’s another loud hissing noise from the stove. “My dad—”

“Never found it. I know it existed at some point, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Sorry,” Liam says, “but what’s the Colt?”

Niall sighs. “It’s a gun that’s supposed to be able to kill anything. Samuel Colt made it himself, in 1835, same night as the Alamo; Halley’s Comet was overhead, blah blah. Story goes he made the gun and thirteen bullets for a hunter, who used six of them before disappearing, along with the gun.”

“There’s proof,” Louis argues.

“Aye, there’s documentation of it existing,” Niall points out, “same as there are photos of Nessie and the fucking Chupacabra.”

Louis frowns. “Both of those are real, though.”

“Real and long-dead and not what people thought they were,” Niall says. “I’m not disputing it exists, or existed, but you don’t know where it is if it’s still around and there’s no proof it works. And even if it did, it’ll kill the host, won’t it?”

“Stasha,” Louis snaps. “She has a name. You got a better idea?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Niall says, agitated, “But—”

“Speaking of which,” Liam says, “how long is she likely to stay in her? She can just possess someone else, right?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Which is why we’re going to kill her, not exorcise her, Liam.”

“Tommo,” Niall says, “remind me again how long she was in you?”

Louis feels the room freeze, silent except for the noise and smells from the stove. The air’s gone a little smoky, thick and tickling his throat.

“What,” Harry says. Louis can’t look at him.

“Oh shit,” he hears Niall mumble, “you didn’t know, did you. Fuckin’ A, Lou, you didn’t think to mention it?”

Louis braves a glance over his shoulder. Harry’s standing at the stove, motionless, and looking at him. There’s definitely smoke beginning to curl up towards the ceiling. Louis feels like he can’t breathe. “She—she—”

“Possessed me, yes,” Louis manages to get out. “And made me kill my parents, and then she left, and that’s burning.” Harry jumps and turns, flicking the burners off and swearing under his breath as he scrapes eggs—scrambled—out onto a plate. Louis thinks he might see him shaking.

“I didn’t know that,” Liam says, sounding genuinely taken aback. “How long?”

“Few hours,” Louis says, voice tight. “There’s no pattern in length of possession.” Plates of hard eggs and bacon blackened at the edges are placed in front of him and Liam, and, shortly after, Niall.

“Well, that’s no help,” Niall says, and then, “Thanks a million, Harry,” picking up his fork and stabbing at the plate with a harsh scrape that makes Louis jump. “Harry? Y’alright?”

“She possessed you,” Harry mutters, his stare long as he sits in the remaining chair, no plate for himself, and puts his elbows on the table.

Niall moves to stand up. “Weather’s nice, innit? I think I’ll take my breakfast outside. Liam, wanna join?”

Liam grabs both their plates. “Yeah, sure.” The speed at which they clear the room is startling, and leaves Louis’ head spinning a little, although that might be the smoke. He thinks about getting up to find the oxygen tank Niall keeps in the corner of the living room, but finds himself frozen in place.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says, tone anguished. “God, I just...I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Louis says. “I didn’t tell you.” The house feels small, like the walls are creeping closer to each other, swallowing floorboards along the way. “Could you open the window?”

“Of course,” Harry says, and he does. “Sorry I burned breakfast.”

“It’s alright,” Louis replies, leaning towards the fresh air and taking a few deep breaths. “So. Sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Why not?” Harry says. “Wait, nevermind, don’t answer that, it’s stupid, it’s fine. Makes sense why you were all...um, excited, about, you know.” He gestures vaguely at his chest. “Me being me.”

“Um,” Louis says. “Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I mean—”

“I get it,” Harry says. “Seriously, I do.”

 _I know,_ Louis thinks. _I don’t deal with people who are off their arses. I wouldn’t do that. Are you sure? I don’t want to do anything you don’t want._ “I know,” he says, softly. “You really aren’t like other demons, are you?”

Harry shrugs, frowning. “I dunno,” he says, low and quiet. “Am I?”

Louis swallows. “No,” he says. “I don’t think so. You’re—you don’t want to hurt people.”

“Less than I don’t want to get hurt,” Harry mumbles, and blinks, hard. “I’m a coward.” He sounds wretched.

“Hey,” Louis says. “No, you’re not. I can’t—I can’t even imagine, okay? What that must’ve been like, down there. It makes sense you’d wanna stay as far away from her as you can. I get it.”

“But you’re still going after her.”

Louis grimaces. “Yeah.” _What else would I do? What would I be if I didn’t?_

Harry blinks up at him, eyes red and wide, but holding his gaze as he says, “Then I am, too.”

*

“Niall,” Louis says, later, “I have a question.” He rubs his eyes, swimming from squinting at the tiny, faded text of an anthropological article from 1977 about demonic possession in Roman Catholic Sri Lanka, from which he has learned nothing that will be of use in the task at hand and plenty that depresses him.

“Go for it, mate.”

Louis glances at the bathroom door; it’s still shut, and he can hear the water running. Liam’s run down to the store to get food and booze. “Do you know,” Louis says, tentatively, “if anyone’s ever, um...come back? From being a demon.”

Niall looks at him, hard. “What d’you mean? Like turned human again?” Louis nods, fidgeting. “I don’t know,” he says, carefully. “Do you want me to ask around?”

“If you could.” Louis chews on his lip. “Just—”

“It’s okay,” Niall says. “God knows I’m always up for another research project.”

Louis laughs. “Nerd,” he says, affectionate. His heart is racing, and he reaches for the next book in his stack. “What would I do without you?”

“Wither away,” Niall says, turning back to the scroll he has open on the desk. “Perish. Starve.”

“I know how to get into your bunker, though,” Louis points out. “There’s enough stuff down there for years.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “I change the combination every month.”

“Paranoid,” Louis grumbles, but thinks _I’m glad_. He thinks about the house, and what he pictures as a kind of invisible half-dome that shields it, how much work Niall’s put into its construction and maintenance, how safe, _truly_ safe it is here; Lucifer himself could probably stand at the edge, he thinks, could gnash his teeth and growl in frustration and loom over, looking in, but be unable to cross the boundary. He’d have to wait.

Just as he allows the thought to settle pleasantly into his body, there’s a knock—quiet, but unmistakable—at the front door. Liam has a set of keys with him, and when he knocks, it’s always, always with the _shave and a haircut - two bits_ pattern. He catches Niall’s gaze, and they both nod; Louis moves sideways to retrieve the shotgun stashed under the chair next to him, as Niall takes out a silver dagger from the bottom drawer of the desk. Keeping his steps as silent as possible, he paces toward the door, one hand steady on the barrel and the other on the stock.

There’s no peephole, so, quick as he can, he undoes the chain, and then the deadbolt, and then the second deadbolt, kicks up the bolt in the floor, and pushes the door open with his foot.

His mouth drops open, soundless, when he sees the figure on the porch. “Stasha?” he says, once he finds his voice, as instinct guides the hand holding the stock to let go, reaching into his back pocket for— _please let it be there—_ his flask. It only takes maybe a couple of seconds for him to flip open the cap and flick his wrist to splash the shivering girl on the porch with holy water, bracing for the sizzle and screech, but—

It doesn’t come. She stares at him, shaking and soaked to the bone, with her arms wrapped around her middle, and says, “Can you help me?”

“Christo,” he says, just in case the holy water somehow got tainted, or wasn’t blessed right, but her eyes stay brown and fearful.

“What?”

“Niall,” Louis calls, “get Harry, would you?” He looks her up and down, taking in how much more ragged she looks than even a few days ago. “How did you get here?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I woke up right at the end of the driveway.” The girl’s on the verge of tears, and Louis glances at the doormat she’s standing on, knows there’s a Devil’s trap burned into the wood below. He steps aside, opening the door.

“C’mon in,” he says, and watches as she takes one, two steps, over the salt line buried under the threshold, and stands in front of him, dripping water onto the floor in little puddles.

“She’s gone,” she says, through chattering teeth, her shaking only getting worse. “I promise.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Harry’s voice says from behind him. Louis watches how her gaze snaps to him and widens, familiar and scared. “It’s just her in there.”

“I’ll go get some towels,” Niall says. “There are space heaters around here somewhere.”

They get her on the couch, bundled in three towels with a cup of hot tea in her hands and three space heaters pointed at her. Her shaking has turned into fine trembles that Louis doesn’t think have anything to do with her body temperature; still, he encourages her to take small sips of liquid, asks her to move all her extremities. He’d had hypothermia, once, when he was about her age; it’s one of the few times Troy had taken him to the hospital straight away.

“How much do you remember?” he asks, gently, when she’s successfully wiggled each finger and toe and finished the whole mug. “Do you remember us?” He gestures between him and Harry, who’s leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching.

“Yes,” she says, a little hoarse. “A little bit. Is he—” She glances at Harry. “—one of…?”

Louis bites his lip. “He’s a demon,” he says, “but he’s safe. He wants to help you.”

“She’s mad at him,” Stasha whispers. “I remember that.”

Harry makes a little noise, and Louis whips around to look at him, sees Harry give a barely perceptible nod before turning back to the girl in front of him. “It’s over now,” he tells her, and curses himself for not leading with that. “You’re safe, and she’s not going to get to you ever again. She can’t get in here, okay?”

“She’s a demon?” Louis nods. “But so is he?”

“Long story,” Harry cuts in, and, hands up and open, he takes several cautious steps toward her, before crouching down to settle on his knees, at Louis’ right. “But you’re right, she is angry with me, because I fought her. Just like you probably did, right?”

She nods her head frantically, eyes welling up. “I tried—”

“Shh,” Harry says. “I know. She’s really strong, though, there’s nothing else you could’ve done.”

Tears slip down her light brown, slightly gaunt cheeks. Louis thinks about the photo from the alert declaring her missing, and blinks hard. “Harry’s right,” he says, quietly. “None of this is your fault, okay?”

“My family are dead?” she says, and it breaks something in Louis to have to nod and watch her face crumple as she begins to sob. He doesn’t interrupt her, even though his every instinct wants to reach forward and pull her into his arms; that’s not his place. His fingers twitch, and he jumps when he feels a hand, big and warm, settle over his right. After a moment of hesitation, he squeezes back, hard, and stays still.

He’s not sure how long they stay like that, his hand and Harry’s linked as they let her cry. It could be hours. At some point, Harry’s thumb starts stroking over the back of Louis’ hand, steadying him. He feels as though his gratitude must be radiating from him, palpable, and he takes Harry’s grip tightening just slightly to mean that he feels it.

“Hey,” he says, once she’s mostly stopped, sobs coming in erratic bursts that are increasingly farther apart, “let’s get some food in you, okay?”

“Not hungry,” she hiccups.

“I know,” Louis says, because he does, “but you have to eat anyway. You’ll feel better, I promise. And I know for a fact that Harry here is an excellent chef.” He looks out of the corner of his eye and sees Harry flush slightly at that, his drying hair fluffy and soft-looking and making him want to reach out to pet it.

“Okay,” she says, sounding unsure, but Louis will take it.

“Great,” he says. “Nialler, is Liam back from the store?” He’d thought he’d heard the door open and close at some point.

“In here,” Niall calls from the kitchen. “Come in for a mo’, would you?”

Louis smiles, and slides his hand out from under Harry’s. “Be right back,” he says, as calm as he can manage—there was a note in Niall’s voice he doesn’t like, and, sure enough, when he enters the room, Niall and Liam are both looking at him, faces pinched and pale, and he has the peculiar sensation of having swallowed a chunk of ice the size of a baseball.

“Lou,” Niall says. “Liam just checked the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and—”

“What,” Louis hears himself say, far-off, barely audible over the thump of his pulse, jack-rabbiting in his ears. “Who.”

Wordlessly, Liam hands him his phone. Louis takes it with shaking hands, and looks; when he drops it, the screen shatters, but Liam doesn’t exclaim, just stands up and brings Louis into a punishing embrace, Niall wrapping himself around his back and muttering something Louis can’t understand, words that must be in some language he doesn’t speak because nothing’s getting through, nothing to distract him from seeing the MISSING poster over and over again, the photo one he’s never seen but that he couldn’t mistake for a second, even without the bold blue text above it proclaiming _FÉLICITÉ_ _TOMLINSON-DEAKIN_ , missing since yesterday. The crush of bodies around him is suffocating; he welcomes it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Sorry for the wait on this--I've been so astonished and humbled by the responses to this story, so thank you for your patience and feedback and encouragement. Thanks, as always, to Kate, who was completely invaluable on this chapter and really pushed me on some of my thinking and choices, and I'm much happier with this chapter for it.
> 
> This one's a bit of a doozy! General warning for violence, peril, alcohol, blood, injury, death, all the good shit. Some suicidal ideation, although the character doesn't necessarily frame it that way. Abuse/trauma warning ramps up here, and as always if you need more information on that I'm more than happy to provide to keep everyone as safe as possible.

Louis has been on a plane exactly once in his life, and he threw up twice, started crying during takeoff, and kicked the back of the seat in front of him so hard the flight attendant had to come over and ask his mom to please get him under control, which had embarrassed her, and made him even more upset, which made him throw up again. After his great-grandmother’s funeral, they had taken the train back home, instead.

“Absolutely not,” Louis says, when Niall suggests they fly cross-country. “No. No way.”

There are plenty of good reasons they can’t fly: Louis still has a warrant (or several) out for his arrest and is most likely on the no-fly list; Harry doesn’t legally have an identity at all; and airlines, Louis thinks, generally frown on people trying to transport bags full of semi-arcane weaponry across the country. There’s probably a rule against that. Anyway, the point is: this has nothing to do with Louis’ distaste for flying, and everything to do with practicality. He grins triumphantly when Niall concedes, but once they’ve packed the car and he’s watching the house disappear in the rearview mirror, he feels decidedly less vindicated.

Niall is staying behind, with Stasha, who’s been quiet and skittish but demands, when she overhears them planning, to come with, and throws a completely age-appropriate temper tantrum when Niall explains all the reasons she can’t and needs to stay here, where if anything goes south she and Niall can move to the bunker and wait it out, which he’s promised to do the second things seem screwy. Niall’s overabundance of caution sometimes grates on Louis, but he’s nothing but grateful for it now. Still, a selfish part of him wants Niall with them, at his side, even though he knows that he can do the most good from here, and nods when Niall claps him on the shoulder and says, “Y’wouldn’t want a gimp holdin’ youse up, anyway. I’m better off behind the scenes.”

It’s him, Liam, and Harry, then—Niall offers to ring Nick, see if he’d be up to joining, as he’s apparently fine now (Louis hadn’t realized Niall was in contact with Nick, and flushes at his failure to check in himself), but Louis’ uncomfortable with the extra risk as it stands, and he’s not about to ask someone else to put their life on the line for him. He’d considered sneaking away and going it alone, too, but the moment he thought it, Harry’s gaze snapped straight to him, intense and glaring, and even though he knew Harry couldn’t read his thoughts (ridiculous that the idea would even cross his mind), it had reminded him that, by necessity, he’d have to break his deal with Harry, and therefore leave Harry vulnerable. Two months ago he would have balked at the idea of a demon’s safety being so high on his list of priorities, but things change, and, much as it’s uncomfortable to admit it, he needs Harry for this, and not just for his abilities. More primally, secretly, he doesn’t want to let Harry out of his sight, chest seizing with anxiety at the very thought of it. It’s a good thing, then, that they’re magically bound to stay within 100 yards of each other.

He sort of expected whatever this _thing_ was between them to vanish once he found out about Fizzy, but the silent and unassuming way Harry’s been taking care of him—setting a couple fingers on the back of his hand when he sees him trembling (and, in turn, letting Louis brush errant curls out of his face or a million other little gestures)—is no small part of what’s keeping him from completely losing his mind. He's grateful for it, and even more grateful that Harry doesn’t make him talk about it—not any of it. He just seems to know. And of course he does: Harry lost his sister, Harry sold his soul to keep her safe, but there’s something else he can’t pin down, too, something he doesn’t know that he has the vocabulary to name, but he doesn’t have to think about it right now. He couldn’t, anyway.

They take the driving in shifts; with bare minimum stops for gas, food, and the bathroom, it’s just shy of two days to New Jersey (Harry had, with Niall fastidiously taking notes, performed some kind of spell involving a map which had suddenly caught on fire and burned until a tiny, charred scrap of paper remained on the scorched table, that scrap apparently showing where Caroline was within a 100-mile radius. Louis had been impressed, and said as much, which made Harry glow faintly in the candlelight, eyes flickering with it). One of them drives, another sits in the passenger seat and uses Liam’s phone to check for updates and check in with Niall, and the third takes the back to sleep. They rotate every six hours; Louis takes first shift driving, and it passes in what feels like a blink or two. He argues that he’s fine, he can do another shift, he doesn’t need to sleep, but not ten minutes after he says it, he’s drifting into the next lane, and when Liam says, firmly, in his don’t-fuck-with-me voice, “pull over,” Louis nods and flips on his turn signal, making his way to the shoulder.

Being forced into the back, annoyingly, has Louis wide awake, eyes having none of the trouble staying open that they were when he was driving. He stares up at the still-broken Devil’s trap carved into the ceiling and doesn’t really pretend to sleep, although it seems he doesn’t need to; after only twenty minutes (he’s not actually sure, time’s been passing funnily) Liam says, in that curious-yet-casual, infuriating way of his that he does when he asks something incredibly personal in a way that makes it seem like he doesn’t know it’s personal, “So how’d you become a demon?”

 _Maybe it’s a cop thing_ , Louis reflects.

“Um,” Harry says, for a long moment. “The usual way, I suppose.”

 _Very informative_ , Louis thinks about saying. It doesn’t sound frustrated in his head, though, just kind of...soft. Fond, maybe. He has the urge to pat Harry on the head and giggle.

Liam’s sigh is very put-upon. “I see why you and Louis get along,” he grumbles.

“And why’s that?” Harry sounds like he’s smiling.

“You’re both really good at dodging the fucking question,” Liam says.

“Hm,” Harry says. “That sounds frustrating for you.” Louis holds in a giggle, and, again, the urge to ruffle Harry’s hair and maybe stick his tongue out at Liam for good measure.

“What’s going on between you two, then?” Liam changes tacks, and Louis feels his heart begin to beat double-time at the question, frantic and shallow. He focuses on keeping his breathing steady, although something—he doesn’t know what, but something—makes him think that Harry knows he isn’t sleeping. Maybe he doesn’t, though, which is unexpectedly and irritatingly thrilling.

Harry huffs. “You’re a bit nosy, you know that?”

Liam laughs. “I was an interrogator for a long time, man. Old habits die hard.”

“They do,” Harry agrees. “‘Fraid mine are a bit older than yours, though.” Louis tries, and fails, not to think of Harry in Hell, of every interrogation technique he could withstand, and shudders.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“I didn’t, you’re right.” Harry’s quiet for a bit. “It’s—I dunno,” he says, softly. “It’s something.”

“Everything’s something,” Liam says.

“No. Not everything. A lot of things are nothing, or you think they’re something but they’re not, not really. You know?” Harry pauses every few words, lingering over certain syllables. Louis’ never met anyone who talks the way Harry does.

“No,” Liam says. “I’m not that much of a philosopher, pal.”

Harry snickers. “‘S not philosophy. It’s just...things. And not-things. Nothings. I dunno how to explain it to a human. No offense.”

“None taken,” Liam says, sounding irked. “So it’s not nothing, this thing between you two. It’s something?”

“Why d’you ask?” Harry says. “Has he...has he told you something?”

“No,” Liam says lightly. “Just wondering.”

“Oh.” Harry sounds disappointed, like maybe he’d hoped Louis had made some kind of confession of love and commitment or other things he’s not allowed to think about. Especially with Fizzy missing. Louis rolls his (closed) eyes.

“It’s just strange,” Liam says, “‘cos you’re a demon and all, and Louis like, _really_ hates demons. I mean, not that he hates you or anything, he obviously doesn’t, but...I’m just curious.”

“I have no idea,” Harry says, a little raw. “I’m a demon. He’s human. I don’t—not much of a future there, is there?”

The word _future_ pounds through Louis’ brain; in all his concern about the morality of wanting a demon, and about Caroline, it hadn’t occurred to him to think about what future they might have. He doesn’t think about his own; he doesn’t have a future, and he never has. His future is _kill Caroline_ , full stop.

“Yeah,” Liam agrees. “That’s a pretty sticky situation. You guys should talk about it.”

“We should,” Harry says, with a finality that even Liam seems to perceive. Silence takes back over, until they have to stop for gas. Louis avoids making eye contact with Harry, making a show of sleepiness.

Louis doesn’t want to think about what Harry said, and so he doesn’t, and he thinks that’s understandable, under the circumstances. Besides, there’s a decently large chance he’s not going to be alive for very much longer, and then none of it matters anyway, although he supposes the mortality thing would become an issue eventually. But Louis doesn’t do _eventually_ , Louis isn’t allowed _eventually_ , Louis can’t want _eventually_ , and so he doesn’t. It’s as simple as that, he reminds himself. Simple.

*

Thankfully, the eight hours between Liam telling him Lottie is at NYU and them arriving in New York is enough time for Louis to process that information—as much as he can, anyway. Part of him is bursting with pride, actually, and if it weren’t drowned out by worry and terror he might brag loudly about his brilliant sister doing amazing things. As it stands, he just sort of wants to vomit and is grateful that it’s quelled by the time they find a parking spot on campus.

 _Make sure she’s safe. Keep her safe. Find Fizzy. Deal with Caroline._ “Well,” Louis says, “where do we go from here?” He claps his hands in a gesture he hopes comes off as confident.

“She’s in a sorority,” Liam says. “Kappa Kappa Gamma.” He gestures to a grey-and-brown stone building. “Their house is up there. I told you that.”

“Wasn’t listening,” Louis admits. “Little overwhelmed. Do we just...go up there? Badges, or what?”

“I think those’ll attract more attention than they're worth,” Liam says. “Just say you’re her brother. It’s the truth.”

Louis swallows. Liam says _the truth_ like that’s easy, but Louis knows he doesn’t mean it maliciously. It’s not his fault lying soothes some wretched, twisted part of Louis that’s apparently in charge. “Okay,” he says, a little shaky. “Let’s get a move on, then.”

“Wait,” Harry says, from the back. His voice is even deeper with sleep. “What do me and Liam say?”

Liam shrugs. “I was just gonna wing it,” he says. “Maybe we could be her brothers, too.”

“Neither of us look like him, though,” Harry argues.

Liam sighs, exasperated. “Will it really be a problem?”

“Harry’s right,” Louis says. “C’mon, time’s a-wastin’. Make something up.” He opens the door and steps out into the muggy, polluted air. It smells like his childhood; he wrinkles his nose at the way the heat makes the ever-present smell of piss even more noticeable. He didn’t complain about it when he was a kid and they went to the city, but now it’s noxious. Thankfully, there's air conditioning behind the building’s door, and he steps inside gratefully.

The girl at the front desk looks bored as all Hell, slumped over with her chin on one hand and the other tapping occasionally at her phone, a mess of curls far outdoing Harry’s falling over her face. She startles when Louis clears his throat, and shoves her phone into her pocket. He laughs, a little, and wonders if Lottie has a job on campus and what it might be.

“Hello,” the girl says, flatly. “Welcome to Lafayette. What’s, um…are you here to see someone?”

“Charlotte Tomlinson,” Louis says. “Kappa Kappa Gamma.”

“Oh!” The girl brightens. “Lottie, yeah. I think she’s upstairs.” Louis can’t explain the sensation that passes through him at learning that Lottie’s kept her childhood nickname, the one _he_ gave her. “Actually, it’s policy that she has to be here for me to let you up. How do you know her?”

 _Okay. Deep breaths. Calm._ “I’m her brother,” Louis says, surprised at how steady his voice sounds.

She frowns. “I thought she only had sisters?”

“Nope,” Louis says, around the lump in his throat that’s strangling his words slightly. “We don’t talk much, so…”

“Okay,” she says, “and what about the two with you?”

Harry goes wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights immediately, but Liam steps in. “Harry’s his partner,” he says, “and I’m their wedding planner. They’re asking Lottie to be in the wedding party.”

“What the fuck,” Louis hisses, elbowing Liam. He keeps his face smiley, maybe a little nervous. Oh well. That’s appropriate, isn’t it? “ _Wedding planner?_ Seriously?” He’s not thinking about how that made his heart rate go even higher, not right now.

“Oh my god.” The girl somehow manages to squeal in a monotone. “That’s so cute, you two are adorable, I’m sorry, is that okay to say?” She makes a little coughing-type noise and opens the binder next to her. “Okay, does she know you’re coming?”

“It’s a surprise,” Liam says, behind his hand and in a stage whisper like he’s telling her a secret. “Is there any chance you could just let us up?”

“Of course,” she says. “I’m Ruby, by the way. Nice to meet you…?”

“Louis,” he says. “Likewise.”

“Eleventh floor,” she says, handing Louis some kind of ID card. He doesn’t recognize the name or face on it.

“What—”

“You need it to make the lift work,” she says. “It’s been in the lost and found for two weeks, just bring it back when you’re done.” She writes something down in the binder in front of her. “You’re all set,” she says. “Lift’s that way.” She points down the hallway to their left.

“Thank you,” Louis says. He knows he should be more polite, but he’s honestly about to vibrate out of his skin or maybe puke.

“Thank you so much,” Harry says, reaching across the desk to shake Ruby’s hand before clasping the other over it. “You’re a lifesaver, you know that?” Louis’ already walking, and looks over his shoulder in time to see them both grinning and hear Harry say, “I love your hair, by the way.”

“Harold,” Louis calls, impatient. He hopes he sounds like an excited fiance. “Before Christmas, if you don’t mind?”

Harry cocks his head to the side and shrugs as if to say, _what can you do_. “Nice to meet you,” he repeats, and finally—about damn time—jogs over to join Louis and Liam by the elevator.

The ride takes almost no time, it feels like—not even the span of a breath. Louis fights the urge to fold himself in half and fall to the floor, and instead just braces his hands on the metal bar and squeezes his eyes shut so hard he sees little dots of color winking in front of them. He almost doesn’t react when the elevator stops moving, a robotic voice announcing _eleventh floor_ , but he feels a big, warm hand rest so lightly—like a butterfly, almost, or a moth—on his shoulder, and he’s grateful for it, and takes a step.

Liam knocks on the door, bless him. Harry hasn’t removed his hand from Louis’ shoulder, and for just a second, Louis brings his own up to squeeze it, trying to say _thank you_ , but then the door opens and he releases it on instinct, like he’s been burned.

“Hi,” the girl who opened the door says, looking them up and down. “Are y’all looking for the Alpha Sigma Tau party? It’s two floors down.”

“Thank you,” Liam says. “No, we were wondering if Lottie Tomlinson was here?”

“She’s in her room. Lottie!” she calls, over her shoulder. “People here to see you.” She turns back to them. “How do you know her?”

“Coming,” Louis hears a voice call from behind the door, and freezes, heart rabbiting like it’s going to jump out of his body. He tries to answer the question, but chokes.

“Are you okay?” the girl says, looking uneasy.

“He’s fine,” Liam says, and then the door swings all the way open.

Louis’ throat is parched. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth like a magnet.

Her—manicured, resting above spidery-long lashes, so _grown up_ —eyebrows lift towards her hairline, and she frowns, but Louis sees, plain as day, the moment she recognizes him. Her mouth falls open, and she stares; he meets her bright blue, bugged-out gaze and tries to hold it as steadily as he can, resisting the urge to take in every detail, every new thing from the last thirteen years: nearly long enough for every cell making up her tissues to have been broken down and replaced by new ones twice over. He’s not sure if that’s actually true, but it feels like it. He’s missed so much.

“Hiya,” he hears himself say. “Um—”

He actually does see it coming: she takes vicious, determined strides toward him, and he’s not proud of how he brings his hands up to shield his face. She pushes him twice, hard, in the chest. He lets the blows move through him, stumbling backward until she stops just before he hits the wall behind him, her eyes flashing and furious.

Hoarsely, she says, “You asshole.” He hopes it’s just the shock of seeing him and she hasn’t started smoking; Jay would roll in her grave, if she hadn’t been cremated. “You total fucking asshole,” she repeats, smoother this time. Her voice is like the rest of her: miles away from the kid he left behind at the home, but with just enough similarity to make him feel awful that she doesn’t feel more familiar.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he is. He’d convinced himself it was for the best, getting away from them, but that assumption had been rudely turned upside down, and Lottie looks fierce and heartbroken, scared like she’s seeing a ghost. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats, one hand tentatively reaching a few inches toward her before he thinks better of it and retracts it to hang limply at his side.

“How did you find me?” she asks, then, breathing heavy.

Louis glances at Liam, who—bless him, truly—waves and takes a step forward, upbeat and direct when he introduces himself. “Hi Lottie, pleasure to meet you. I’m Liam Payne, I’m a former FBI agent. I helped your brother find you.”

“Brother,” she repeats, slowly. “Okay. Are you a Fed too?” She looks at Louis.

He can’t help but laugh and share a knowing look with Liam. “No,” he says. “I’m not.”

“What are you, then?” Her voice begins to shake. “CIA? Witness protection? What?”

“It’s a long story,” he says. “Could we go somewhere private?”

She just stares at him for several agonizingly long moments, and then he’s flinching again as she propels herself toward him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and squeezing so hard he has trouble inhaling, but he holds just as hard, uses his breaths to catalogue the fruitiness of her perfume, knows his eyes must be leaking but doesn’t care, not one bit.

*

“So let me get this straight,” Lottie says. “Demons are real. A demon possessed you to kill mom and dad, and the same demon, according to you, has now possessed Fizzy, which is why she’s missing.” Her voice wavers only slightly on the last word. She’s sharp-edged, been cutting him off every few seconds and glaring with hard pale eyes. She became the eldest, he realizes, once he wasn't there to watch out for the rest of them.

“Yes,” he says.

She crosses her arms. “Prove it.”

“I can’t—”

“Just the demon thing. Cause I'm starting to think you might be crazy and you've just broken out of the mental hospital and that's where you've been.”

 _Not as far off as you might think_ , Louis thinks, smiling ruefully. “Harry,” he says. He’s been hanging around the door, apparently trying to give them space. Lottie had asked about him, and he’d deflected fairly successfully, and Liam hasn't repeated the engagement story, thank god. Liam’s sitting at the desk, alternately frowning at his phone and talking rapidly with his hand over his mouth, always scanning the exits. Louis is so, so grateful for him. “Can you come over here?” he calls. His pulse is rabbiting; he owes his sister this, though: an explanation, on her terms.

Harry sidles up to the bed and doesn’t sit down, even though there’s room, seemingly not sure if he’s allowed. Louis pats the floral bedspread, scooting over a few inches, and nods, smiling lightly when he feels the weight of him depress the mattress, and he folds his hands in his lap, looking back and forth between Louis and Lottie but staying silent, nose scrunching like he might sneeze.

“This is Harry,” Louis says.

“Nice to meet you,” Harry murmurs.

“You too,” Lottie says, but after a cursory glance in Harry’s direction she goes back to looking at Louis. She raises her eyebrows, like, _explain_.

“Harry’s, uh, helping,” he settles on, because it’s true, and the easiest lead-in, but he sees the tiniest flash of something that looks like hurt in Harry’s eyes, and he looks away. Not right now. He’s trying to gauge the best way to break the _he’s a demon_ news; he’s not sure if she’ll scream or run or any of the totally reasonable reactions she might have to the words or Harry flashing his red eyes. He knows how his father told him, but that’s not applicable here. Lottie hasn’t been possessed. _Fizzy has_ , his brain reminds him, _and god only knows how much time we have_.

Right. Straight to the point. “Harry’s a demon,” he says, “but he’s helping.”

She frowns. “Okay,” she says. “Did your eyes just go red?” she asks Harry.

“Yes,” Harry says, then shakes his hair out and pushes it out of his face. “They do that. Usually when I’m, like, emotional, or using my...powers, or whatever.”

Lottie frowns. “Demons have emotions?”

“Not really,” Louis cuts in. “Not the way humans do.” He winces as he says it and wishes he could reel the words back in, re-shape them into something less callous but still true. Harry’s told him so, he reminds himself. It’s not like he’s being cruel.

“Right,” Harry says, quietly.

“Huh.” Lottie blinks. Louis zeroes back in on her. She’s taking all of this much better than he would have thought. “Okay. So what do we do?”

“We need to get you safe,” Louis says. “Immediately. We couldn’t find where the twins live, do you know?”

She nods. “Hillsborough,” she says. “Not too far.” She frowns. “Are you gonna take them, too? They’re minors.”

“No,” Louis says. “Not even gonna go inside, just going to put some protection on the house.”

“How?”

“Um. Hex bags, some salt lines.”

“Like witchcraft?”

“Yeah, like witchcraft. But not, like, evil.”

“Huh,” Lottie says. “That's kinda cool.”

Louis points at her. “You're not allowed to become a witch,” he says sternly.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, that's rich.”

“What?” Louis snaps.

“You can't tell me what to do!”

“I'm your brother, and—”

“Please,” she scoffs. “You haven't been here, you don't know me. We’re only half siblings anyways.”

Louis flinches; that's a wound that's still open, apparently. He searches for something to say, but Harry beats him to it.

“That's not fair,” he says, calm and gentle. “I know you're upset, but we need to find your sister, and yelling at Louis isn't going to solve anything.”

She crosses her arms. “Okay,” she says, tone dripping with derision. “What do you have to say for yourself, then?”

“We should hit the road,” Liam says suddenly, and loudly. “We can all squeeze in Louis’ car—”

“I'm taking my own car,” Lottie interjects. “I need a way to get back.”

“We can take you back,” Louis starts to argue. “I’m not fucking kidnapping you—”

“Forgive me for being a cautious when my little sister’s missing!”

“She’s my sister, too—”

“Right. So—”

“Hey,” Liam half-shouts, and Louis feels both he and Harry jump slightly. “I get that you two have shit to talk about, but could you please do it while we’re driving?”

“Fine,” Louis and Lottie say simultaneously, and Louis feels himself crack a tiny smile.

*

He almost starts arguing again when he realizes that if he and Lottie are going to talk and she’s going to insist on driving her own car (something else that makes him smile, a little, despite himself), then that means he and Harry need to ride with her while Liam drives the Camaro. Louis hates being driven and he hates other people driving his car, but a pointed look from Liam when he opens his mouth reminds him, _hey, priorities_.

She’s a good driver, he notices quickly: safe without being timid. He catches himself about to tell her to watch out for a jaywalker more than once, remembering how much it drives him up the wall when Liam or anyone else does the same to him and shutting up. Harry sits in the back and looks out the window, Liam’s huge noise-cancelling headphones over his ears. Louis isn’t sure if they’re on, although Harry’s bobbing his head, which makes him a little less nervous, and a little more guilty, although it’s pithy in comparison to the mountain of guilt sitting heavy in his abdomen and growing with each minute Lottie doesn’t say anything but curses under her breath at New York traffic. Getting out of the city takes almost an hour.

Thankfully, the Turnpike isn’t too insane this time of day, and she only occasionally punches the horn or flips someone off. Louis had almost forgotten about the pure, untempered hostility of New Jersey driving, and finds himself thinking absently about his father. Troy had a gift for screaming at other drivers, and especially for creative cursing. He feels himself shiver minutely at every blare of a horn.

The line for the toll booth is long, and they hold still for long increments. “You left us,” Lottie says, suddenly, precise and certain like she’s been planning what she’s going to say for the last hour. A muscle in her jaw ticks. “You didn’t even try to stay in touch, and I finally got your bio-dad’s number and it was disconnected. You disappeared.”

“I did.” Louis ducks his head slightly and watches an SUV nearly rear-end a little Volkswagen. “It wasn’t my choice,” he says. “I had to go—”

“But you never came back,” Lottie says. “They told us you would visit. Fizzy kept talking about it, up until a few years ago when she realized it was never gonna happen.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Louis murmurs, trying to keep the plea out of his tone. “I thought you wouldn’t want to be reminded, and, like, you’d have a new life. I didn’t wanna intrude on it. I—my, um, my birth father wasn’t super big on the idea, and we sort of...moved around a lot.”

“What’s he like?” Lottie asks.

Louis leans his forehead against the window glass, just for a moment. It's warm. A horn startles him away from it. “Alright. What about the people who adopted you?”

She shrugs. “Dan and Liz? They’re nice. They let us visit Daisy and Phoebe whenever we want. Helped me apply to college and stuff. Good people.”

“So the twins—”

“Got adopted first,” Lottie says. “Like, practically the first family who saw them. People love babies.” He can hear the bitterness eking through her tone, like the few stray coffee grounds that inevitably make it into the cup. “They just started high school.” She’s still cool, distant, guarded. He doesn’t blame her, but it wounds in a way he wasn’t expecting it to.

“Good,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to. “You and Fizzy…?”

She shrugs, changing lanes. A horn blares behind them. “Couple of foster homes, a few people who were interested in one of us.”

“But...you—”

“Stayed together,” she finishes. “Whenever they’d send one of us on one of those tryout weekends alone we’d just be nightmares. I wasn’t gonna lose her, too.” She gets slightly choked up, but then a Ford truck carrying an unsecured load of lumber cuts her off and she hisses, “ _Fucking_ asshole,” and leans on her horn for several seconds.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I mean, I’m glad you were able to stay together, but—”

“But you didn’t want to see us.” It’s not a question.

“I did,” he argues. “I wanted to so, so much, but I’m stupid, and by the time I could’ve gone on my own I’d convinced myself you were better off without me, like...I’d be intruding. And making things complicated. And reminding you.”

“Reminding me of what? My big brother?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Of the fire. And mom and dad. Y'know.”

“Did you think I’d forgotten?” she says, incredulous.

A motorcycle weaves in front of them and Louis flinches slightly. “Sorry, no, I just, in the home, you were so—”

“Whatever,” she cuts in. “I was a kid, I was freaked out. I know you didn’t, like, do it. I mean, the demon possession thing, I didn’t know, but now that I do—nobody blamed you for the fire, Lou, Jesus.”

 _That’s not true_ , Louis thinks. “Really?” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “Really. Fizzy was barely old enough to remember, the twins don’t remember at all, and, I mean. I’m okay,” she mutters. “I don’t know. I’m just—I’m really fucking mad.”

“Okay.” He swallows. “I deserve that. I know I do. I’m mad at me, too.” He knows the list of excuses he’d run through every time he thought about trying to get in touch: he didn’t know where they were; maybe they’d changed their names; he didn’t want to fuck things up. He knows each of them had totally doable solutions, but he didn’t do anything, and he can’t change that, can’t change how much he’s missed and how much he aches for that, hollow and hungry, fighting the impulse to ask for every detail from the last dozen years. They’ve got work to do.

*

Louis doesn't let Lottie help with the protection on the twins’ home. He's grateful that she doesn't really argue with him; he wants out of here as fast as possible, and he's efficient about placing the five hex bags around the lot, forming a pentagram if you joined them up right. If it were winter, he might be able to get away with adding some salt, but he doesn't know when the family’s getting home or how they'd react to a stranger dumping rock salt by their windows and doors. He finishes, gets back in the car, and says, “Could one of you find a motel nearby?” Lottie already knows one.

Harry spreads a map out on the desk in their motel room, muttering in Latin, and Louis jumps when the paper catches fire, but Harry doesn’t seem alarmed, so he lets it be—sure enough, the fire vanishes, with just a scrap left behind, the edges singed.

“She still hasn’t left the state,” Harry says. “That’s good.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it. Louis isn’t sure he believes it either; there’s some reason she’s stayed in New Jersey, has to be. _She wants to be found_ , his brain hisses. They’ve been over this; there isn’t an alternative. She may well be setting a trap, but Louis will not sacrifice his sister on the altar of his pride. No matter the consequences, they’re doing this. _He’s_ doing this.

“Can you get any more specific?” he asks.

Harry nods. “Do you have a local map?”

“I have one in my car,” Lottie says; Louis startles, having nearly forgotten she was there, in the corner, furiously typing on her phone. “I’ll go get it.”

“I’ll come with you,” Louis says immediately, standing up.

Lottie rolls her eyes, the protest visible, but she doesn’t say anything, and he follows her out to the little yellow Honda parked next to his Camaro.

She’s quick about it; she unlocks the car, opens the passenger side door, and roots around in the glove compartment for a few seconds before holding up a folded map that looks like it’s seen better days. Louis is bizarrely, suddenly proud; of course Lottie’s too smart to rely on GPS. She’s his sister.

“Huh,” he hears her say, before straightening up and pushing the door shut. She’s got something else in her hand, a little burlap bag tied with red string. Louis feels his throat constrict; he knows a hex bag when he sees one, and he’s by her side in an instant, snatching it out of her grip.

“Hey!” she says. “Watch it, snatchy.”

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Get back in the room. Now.” His tone is apparently enough to convey his seriousness; she just nods and obeys.

With shaking fingers, he unties the string; it’s a good knot, and it takes him a while. When he gets it open, he spreads the bag out flat in his palm to examine the contents. He doesn’t recognize much of it, and that doesn’t bode well; he’d been hoping for some kind of protective or concealing enchantment, but he knows those like the back of his hand, and he’d know if he were holding one. Niall’s much better with this kind of thing, but Louis is competent enough to know that this bag is bad news.

Lottie left the doors unlocked, so he doesn’t have to smash the window or anything dramatic like that. He searches the car top to bottom, every nook and cranny and possible hiding place, even in the engine, but he doesn’t find another bag. He checks again, to be sure.

“Liam,” he says, when he gets inside and locks the door behind him. “Can you take a picture of this and send it to Niall, please?” He passes off the hex bag and makes a beeline for the bathroom; he needs a minute, just a minute, to collect himself, or else he might scream and break into a million tiny, sharp shards that will get stuck in everyone’s skin and burrow in deep enough to cause an infection.

He hears the door open and shut and knows it’s Harry without opening his eyes or moving from his position, hands braced on either corner of the vanity and front slumped over, heaving. The gentle glide of a big hand down his spine makes him jump, but after the shock fades, it’s nice. Grounding. He likes it, although he doesn’t quite know what to do with being comforted—that’s what’s happening, right? It’s been a long time, and he’s convinced himself he neither wants nor needs it, but that seems silly when Harry’s mere presence, the steadiness of his touch, is doing so much for the torrent of grief and fear wrecking Louis from the inside out and making him shake so hard his teeth chatter. When Harry tentatively loops an arm around his torso, he pushes into it, and lets Harry’s hand settle flat over his sternum, firm but not forcing, lets Harry crowd up behind him slowly, as if checking every millimeter to make sure he’s allowed, until they’re pressed flush together, and Louis can feel, if he concentrates, the thud of Harry’s pulse against his back. He focuses on it until it blends with his own, and it feels like he can breathe again.

“There’s something I need to do,” Harry says into his neck, a long time after that. “To finish her, once and for all.”

“Okay,” Louis says. “What is it?”

He feels Harry sigh against his throat. “I...need to go somewhere. And you can't come with me.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Louis jokes. He doesn't mean it to come out strangled and cracked.

“No,” Harry says. Louis feels his cheek heat where it's pressed against Louis’ skin. “I mean, um...no. I’m coming back.”

“Why do you have to go?” Louis hears how childish he sounds and winces.

“Just _trust me_ ,” Harry says, turning them around and moving in front of him so he's looking right at Louis, eyes wild, flickering between green and red. “There’s something I have to do, and I can’t bring you with me, but I _promise_ I am coming back.”

Louis bristles. “If you just told me—”

“Louis,” Harry whispers. He leans forward as if to kiss him, but holds himself back, mouth tightening at the corners. “I swear.”

“That doesn’t cut it,” Louis snaps, the heavy secure feeling vanishing and being replaced once more by the sensation that he’s made entirely of sharp edges, razor wire and shrapnel and nothing else. “The deal was you _help_ , not run away and not tell me shit.”

Harry’s silent for a while. He leaves his hands where they are, loosely holding Louis’ wrists, and Louis doesn’t look at him. _I’m sorry_ , he almost says, more than once, but reminds himself that Fizzy is priority number one, and Harry hiding things from him isn’t fucking okay. “I know the plan is just to exorcise her,” he says, quietly, “but um. Hounds can kill demons.”

“Hounds,” Louis repeats. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Harry says. “I’m sure.”

“But they kill the host,” Louis says, “don’t they?”

“There are ways around that,” Harry says. “I wouldn’t hurt your sister.” There’s a slight pleading note to his voice, a little woundedness, and Louis hates that he put it there. _I’m sorry_ , he thinks again. _She’s just the most important thing_. He brings a hand up to cup Harry’s cheek and stroke his thumb over the bone and the shell of his ear, hoping he’s imagining the tiny flinch he feels.

“Do what you have to do,” he says, as softly as he can manage. It comes out hoarse, but Harry pushes into his touch a little more, so Louis feels like he got the intention, or at least some of it.

“Thank you,” Harry breathes, looking both relieved and terrified at once. “I—” he starts, and then scrunches his face as if to hold something he was about to say in, swallows it back into his stomach. “You’ll be okay,” he says, like a question.

“Of course,” Louis assures him. He doesn’t say, _I know what I’m going to do if this doesn’t work, and you’re not gonna like it_.

“Right,” Harry says, starting to roll the sleeve of his shirt up. “You need to cut through these.”

“Ugh,” Louis says. “Please tell me this is actually necessary and you’re not just enacting some knifeplay thing.” He wouldn’t actually be _that_ opposed, really. He’s not squeamish about blood. If Harry wanted it, he’d probably find a way to make it work. That’s a future thought, so he shuts it down quickly.

Harry giggles. “No,” he says, “not really my thing,” and bends on one knee to fish the silver knife out of Louis’ boot, which is bizarrely intimate. Louis shivers, and takes it.

“Quick and easy,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. Harry extends his arm, and he doesn’t hesitate—he might wimp out, isn’t that ridiculous?—before cutting a clean line through the three tattoos, a wave of sadness rolling through him, like he’s just severed a part of himself. He winces in sympathy at Harry’s little gasp, and squeezes his arm affectionately before dropping it and re-sheathing the knife. He almost asks for a kiss for luck, but he doesn’t, because all he can think is _last kiss_ and he doesn’t know if he could handle that.

It hurts to watch Harry go, like the physical wrenching of a limb, but he does it. He has the morbid thought once he's alone that he’s losing bits of himself, his loved ones chipping off one by one until he’s alone, whittled down and brittle. He knows he’s being dramatic; Niall’s at home, Liam’s going to stay with Lottie, and Harry...well, he has no idea where Harry’s going, or when he began to count Harry among his loved ones, only that he does, that Harry has become essential to him, and that the thought of him not returning makes his heart plummet into his feet and his teeth chatter, so he doesn’t linger on it, and he goes back into the room, trying not to let his expression drop when Liam tells him Harry walked out the door and disappeared (but not before giving Liam ( _Liam_ ) the exact location and time they should summon Caroline and wait for him). Louis nods opens a mini bottle of Jack Daniels.

*

Niall calls, around midnight. Louis goes outside to answer—he’s not entirely sure why, but it seems like the thing to do. Lottie’s asleep, and he doesn’t want to wake her up. That’s probably a good enough reason.

“Heya Nialler,” he says, and lights a cigarette. There’s a little bit of awning shielding him from the rain, and he likes how the wall feels behind his back.

“Have you slept?” Niall asks immediately. “No offense, but you sound like shit.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis snaps, “you try having your sister possessed by a demon and see how great you feel.” There’s silence for a few moments; Louis exhales. “Okay, sorry, that was dickish of me.”

“Yeah,” Niall says. “I get it, though. Where did you find that hex bag Liam texted me? That’s some seriously evil shite. Nothing overt, just like...terrible luck, y’know?”

Louis sucks desperately on the cigarette for a minute. “Lottie’s car,” he manages, after. “So.”

“Fuck,” Niall says. “Well, good thing you got it out. Any idea who put it there?”

“It’s got to be Caroline,” Louis says. “Who else could it be?”

“Yeah,” Niall says. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“Um...look, this might not be the best time, but I figured I’d just say it. Y’know how you asked about how if anyone had ever cured a demon?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Niall says, “I may have found something.”

“Okay,” Louis says, flicking ash down to the pavement. It’s nearly burnt down to the filter; the next cigarette is his last, and he should probably save it, which means he can’t have this conversation right now. “I...let’s talk about it later, okay? I’m sorry, I just—I can’t think about anything else, right now.” The idea of curing Harry is too seductive for him not to push it away immediately. No futures, not right now. He can’t think past tomorrow.

“Fair enough,” Niall says. “I’ll leave you alone. Just...I’m here if you need me, alright? Just a phone call away.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, and hangs up. The cigarette burns the tips of his fingers, and he feels suddenly, awfully like crying, so instead he tips his head back and bites the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood.

*

The plan was simple. Liam stays with Lottie in the motel. Louis goes to the mostly empty warehouse outside Edison, draws as many Devil’s traps as he can, summons Caroline, and waits for Harry; failing that, he exorcises her, or he goes with plan C, which he hasn’t told anyone about and doesn’t plan to. He hopes it won’t come to that.

But Harry should be here by now, and he’s not.

“Where’s your pet?” Caroline asks, reclining on the floor inside a spray-painted Devil’s trap, wearing his little sister’s body: different than what he remembers, much like Lottie, but unmistakable. He feels nauseous. “I miss him. That’s most of the reason I’m even here. Have you gotten tired of him, then?” He stays silent, but she keeps needling. “Too obedient for your taste? Oh well. To each his own.”

He bristles. Harry’s not _obedient_ —eager to please, maybe, but mostly frustrating and obstinate and impossibly odd.

Caroline sighs, and inspects her nails— _Fizzy’s_ nails, painted light pink and a little chipped. “Seems he’s gotten a bit defiant lately, though, what with his holiday and all. No worries, I’ll have him back in line soon enough. If it were anyone else, I’m not sure it would be worth the effort, but he’s...special.”

 _Please_ , he thinks, hoping the thought will somehow make its way to wherever Harry is. _Please come quickly._

“That’s cute,” she says. “If only you knew him when he was a wee human. So lovely. But I quite like what I’ve done with him, don’t you? Some of my best work.”

Louis takes a deep breath. _He’ll come_ , he tells himself. _He said he would._ A nastier, older voice, one that sounds less like Louis, says, _since when do you trust what demons say?_ He shakes his head and blinks hard.

“Wondering where he is?” she drawls, casual as anything. “I sent all my best people after him, so you can safely assume he’s somewhere deep in the Pit. He won’t be coming out for a while.” She cocks her head. “Oh, were you waiting for him to come save the day? Tragic.”

“No,” Louis lies. “No, I was waiting for you to shut up so we could negotiate.”

“Negotiate?” She leans forward, sounding intrigued. “What are we negotiating about?”

“You can have me,” Louis blurts out. “Body and soul, all of it, whatever you want. Just get out of my sister and leave the rest of my family alone, forever. I don’t even want ten years.” It aches to say it, like he can feel himself being pulled downward as he speaks, but his voice doesn’t waver.

“You take after your mother,” she says, pleased. “Even after spending so much time with your father. Lovely.”

“What?” His head is pounding. “What the fuck does that mean?”

She tilts Fizzy’s head. “Did you not know?”

“Know what?” he snaps.

“You don’t,” she says, sounding incredulous. “Oh my. He never told you. Your daddy really was a coward, wasn’t he?” She giggles

“Shut up,” he says. “You’re just trying to buy time.”

“Why would I need to do that?” She smiles at him. “If you were going to do something, you’d have done it already. _You’re_ stalling.” She squints before going wide-eyed, a sick realization in her smirk. “Oh. You want to know why, is that it? You want closure.

“It’s really not that complicated. Your daddy’s family had been royal pains in my arse forever, but believe it or not, I wasn’t even trying to get revenge. It was just work. My former superior—she’s dead, now, unfortunately, although it was the only way to free the big boss—anyway, she had a taste for young children. See, normally, I’d get them on maternity wards, but when I heard your mum talking about you and how distant _Troy_ had seemed lately, asking her coworker what she thought she should do, I looked up your record, and sure enough, there you were. It was just…” She purses her lips. “Poetic? Two birds, one stone. I found her mother, kicked her out and wore her into your apartment. You look like you know this part.”

Stiffly, he nods. Not in as much detail, but he does know.

She claps her hands together. “So your daddy _did_ tell you,” she says happily, wiggling a little. “Bet he didn’t tell you the fun part, though. Did he ever tell you the exact day it happened? No? Lovely. It was, let’s see...December 30th, I believe, 1992.”

The hitch of his breath must give him away. “Ah,” she says, “you’ve got it. Exactly ten years before you and I became acquainted. Do I have to spell it out for you?” She waits for barely half a second before continuing. “Well, some big scary hunter your daddy turned out to be. He just stood there like a twit and watched whilst your mother threw herself between you and I, screaming about how she’d do anything, just not to take her baby away, and she had such a nice soul, I really couldn’t resist.

“So I said to myself, screw it, Lilith won’t know the difference, she can drink any old baby, and I offered your mum a deal. Ten years, the standard contract. I even threw in some bells and whistles, although I think she was so desperate it wouldn’t have mattered.” She shakes her head. “Good mother, stupid woman. Self-sacrificing to a fault. She held up pretty well downstairs, from what I hear; I was preoccupied at the time. She didn’t know what she was signing away, not really, obviously, but your dad did. I would’ve made him the same offer, but he just watched and let her sell me her soul. And then he left you.” She smiles. “I suppose the guilt would’ve been awful, but even I think that’s a bit cold.”

“You’re lying,” he says, willing his voice not to shake. _Demons lie. Where the Hell is Harry? He should be here by now._

She sighs. “I’m really not, sweetheart, but if that’s what you want to think.”

“Are you taking the deal or not?”

“Hold on,” she says. “I’m considering it. You might need to sweeten the pot a little.”

“What else do you want?” he snaps. Now that it’s in motion, he’s impatient, nauseous with terror and trying to cover it up. He’s got her trapped—it should put him in a better bargaining position, but it doesn’t feel like it, with her draped all over the chair like it’s a throne and her lips pursed, _Fizzy’s_ lips, she’s sitting inside his sister and using her body like she has the _right_ , like that’s not the only thing keeping Louis from ripping her limb from limb—

“You know, I’m feeling generous. I’ll accept your terms. I let go of little Felicite and never touch another hair on any of your sisters’ heads, and you come downstairs with me. Deal?”

He squares his shoulders and swallows against the acid-burn in his esophagus. “Deal,” he says, looking her dead in the eyes.

“Lovely,” she purrs, and beckons him with one finger. “Come on now, love, let’s get to it.”

He reels momentarily, having forgotten that _all_ deals were sealed with kisses, not just ones made for an excuse to kiss stupidly pretty demons. Which means he has to kiss Caroline, who’s wearing his little sister, whose diapers he helped change. He vomits in his mouth, just a little, and forces it back down, closing his eyes and counting _one, two, three_.

He takes a step forward.

“If it helps,” she continues, “she barely even remembers you. I’m sure she won't be _too_ traumatized.”

He opens his mouth to say something—he doesn’t know what—and for a split second, he thinks that the screech that slices through the air is some inhuman noise she’s dragged out of him, but it’s the door scraping across the floor, and he cranes to look, hoping, _hoping against hope_ —

It’s Harry. Of course it is; he’s soaked to the bone, hair limp and dark and sticking to his face, the hard set of his brow and the faint tremble of his jaw.

“Harry,” Caroline calls. “Nice of you to join us. Louis here was just about to give me his soul in exchange for vacating this suit.”

“I—” Louis starts, catching just a glimpse of the wounded shock in Harry’s gaze, before Caroline begins speaking again and Harry turns his attention to her.

She talks, of course. “Are we expecting anyone else? Your eldest sister, perhaps? I considered it, you know, but she’s a bit old for my taste, and it would’ve taken you longer to realize she was missing. Although I couldn't resist planting a little surprise for her.” Louis shudders, glad he burned the hex bag. Caroline makes a show out of plucking at Fizzy’s cardigan and dress, like they're hers to touch. “I like this one, though. She’s feisty.”

“Shut up,” Louis snaps.

“No,” she says calmly. “I don’t think I will. Harry, do you have something to say?”

Quiet, barely audible over the lashing of the rain on the tin roof, Harry says, “Shut up. Don’t talk to him.”

She throws her head back laughing. “Oh my goodness, that’s so precious. I almost don’t even want to say anything, but…” She grins. “You think you love him, don’t you?”

“Shut up,” Harry repeats. There's a noticeable quaver in his tone.

“You do,” she crows. “Oh, love. Does he know?” She turns to Louis. “Do you? You don’t. You should’ve told him, Harry,” she chides. “My baby’s all grown up and in love with a hunter.

“It’s a pity Harry’s actually incapable of it, though. Love, that is. He’s forgotten what it feels like. You show him the littlest bit of affection and he’s following you around like a kicked puppy, thinking he’s in love with you, desperate to keep you happy so you don’t leave him. And you…” She narrows her eyes at Louis. “Was he good for you? Harry, were you good for him? I bet you were.”

“ _Enough_ ,” Louis hears, in an almost animalistic roar, and it takes a second and a sting in his throat for him to realize he made that sound, furious like he’s almost never been, as if the violence of the water and electricity outside has stoked something pure and primal in him, an animal that’s been waiting to come out, one of the creatures that he keeps locked up in its pen in his mind set free and vicious with hunger and hatred. “Harry,” he feels himself growl, “did you get what you needed?”

As if in answer, the door opens again, this time accompanied by a low rumble and a sharp shift in the air. Louis can’t see anything, but the air seems to move strangely around Harry’s feet, and when he hears a harsh bark, he puts it together. _Hellhounds_ , he realizes, remembering _mine are rescues_.

Caroline just chuckles. “Hounds? Really? C’mon, Harry, I thought you were smarter than that.”

“No you didn’t,” Harry says. “Which is where you went wrong.”

“They’re _mine_ , idiot.” She rolls her eyes. “They're loyal to me.”

“You can beat a dog until it’s afraid of you,” Harry says, voice shaking but clear and precise, “but that doesn’t make it yours.” He takes a deep breath, sticks the index and middle fingers of both hands in his mouth, and lets out a high, sharp whistle. The air ripples around his legs, low growling noises seeming to rumble out of the ground itself.

Caroline rolls her eyes. “Are you going to kill loverboy’s sister, too? I’ll drag her down to Hell with me. We can have some fun. You remember how much fun we had. How loud do you think I can make little Felicite scream?”

Louis seizes. Would he? What reason does Harry have not to kill Felicite in the process, if it means ending Caroline? _He wouldn’t_ , he tries to convince himself, but Harry doesn’t say a word, and the dread grows, sick and twisting.

“Wait,” he starts to say, “Harry, hang on—”

“ _Trust me_ ,” Harry says, voice pitched deeper than ever, like there's a little bit of hound in him, too. He takes a few steps to stand right next to Louis, so close he can feel the way he’s shivering, right on the edge of the trap Caroline’s caught in. “When I say,” he whispers, “push me forward, and pull her out.”

“What?” Louis hisses. “Why would I push—”

“Just trust me,” Harry begs. “Please.”

“Okay,” Louis says. There’s nothing else to do. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, and then, a little louder but much less steady, “for...um, everything. And I’m sorry.”

“What?” Louis says. “Hey, what do you mean?”

Harry’s not listening, though. He’s looking at Caroline, his eyes burning red, and raising his hand before he starts speaking, a language Louis’ never heard before but that sounds ancient and raises the hairs on the back of his neck with the power of it. Louis marvels at it until an ear-piercing shriek makes him clap his hands over his ears and whine.

Harry yanks his hands away, though, bellowing, “Now, Louis!” before the air goes suddenly, chillingly cold, and Harry throws his head back, pouring forth a billowing cloud of red, rolling smoke, immense and terrifying. Louis watches until he sees the last of it escaping from Harry’s mouth, and he remembers, _push me in, pull her out_. He plants his hands on Harry’s shoulder blades and shoves as hard as he can. Harry’s long, limp body slumps forward and lands with an awful cracking noise.

“Shit,” Louis says, looking around wildly until his gaze settles on Fizzy, similarly limp, and the even more immense, terrifying mass of smoke hovering above her and writhing like it’s enraged or agonized or both, and he remembers Harry told him to pull her out just in time to grab her before the cloud makes a kind of roar and rushes downward, narrowly missing Louis and Fizzy as he stumbles under her weight out of the Devil’s trap.

He watches, frozen, as the cloud screams its way down Harry’s throat, making his whole body jerk and spasm on the concrete floor until it abruptly stops with an unnatural arch of his back that makes Louis wince and let out a tiny hurt noise. His ears ring; when he can hear again, he picks up the rumbling, low-level growl of the hounds. Once he checks Fizzy’s pulse and breathing, he takes a deep breath and looks at Harry.

It’s Caroline. He knows the second she opens Harry’s eyes, the look of annoyance on her face made up of Harry’s features but not Harry’s expression; Harry doesn’t roll his eyes like that, Harry doesn’t purse his lips like that, and Louis is vividly furious at Caroline for putting a look on Harry’s face that doesn’t belong there. _She_ doesn’t belong there.

“Ugh,” she says, and she’s using Harry’s voice wrong, too, lacing it with venom and pitching it too high. “Bad boy, Harry, you’ll pay for that later.” She looks at Louis. “Like what you see?” she teases. “I prefer women, but he’s pretty enough, isn’t he?”

Louis snarls, momentarily jolted by how loud and deep it is, until he realizes that it’s the hounds, Harry’s hounds, circling around the edge of the trap.

“Oh come on,” Caroline-in-Harry snaps, “back off, mutts. I’m in charge of him, which means I’m in charge of you.” The growling doesn’t stop, though—it gets louder, actually, and some of the hounds begin to bark, a sound that makes Louis’ gut twist. “You ungrateful little shits, I’m going to—”

He never finds out what Caroline was going to do, because the hounds descend, all at once, pinning Harry’s body to the ground, spread-eagled, screaming, and it doesn’t seem to matter that it’s Caroline in there, Caroline shrieking loud enough to break glass as the dogs tear and shred until she can’t scream because she’s choking on blood; it doesn’t matter, because it’s Harry’s body, Harry’s voice, and it takes Louis a second to realize the high-pitched whimpering noise is coming from _him,_ that the wrenching feeling in his chest isn’t anything supernatural, that he’s not having a heart attack, that watching this just hurts this badly, this macabre painting, this horror movie. He’s never seen Hellhounds kill before, only the aftermath. He thought nothing could be worse, and he was horribly, awfully wrong.

His legs feel like the bones have been sucked out of them, leaving only soft flesh to stand and take the few lurching steps toward the ever-expanding pool of dark blood, pulling his sister behind him with a hand wrapped around her wrist so he can feel her pulse. His other hand trembles as he reaches for Harry’s—unharmed, it seems, but blood-spattered—face, still warm under the gentle brush of Louis’ fingers. The blood is beginning to dry and become tacky, and Louis wants to clean it off him. Mostly he wants Harry to wake up.

He looks up, frantically, around the warehouse, but he doesn’t see any smoke, just empty space and corrugated metal. He moves his hand so it’s cupping the back of Harry’s neck and lifting his head off the cold floor, his hair starting to mat with clotted blood. Louis wants to push some of it out of his face, but he doesn’t want to let go of Fizzy.

“Come back,” he says, shaking Harry a little. “Hey. Can’t believe you did that, you asshole. Come back so I can thank you and then yell at you about how stupid that was, okay?” He hears the hysterical, strangled note in his voice and doesn’t care; why didn’t he say before that he wanted Harry to stick around, after? Why hadn’t he admitted it to himself? The _after_ had always been some kind of nebulous, mirky concept Louis was skeptical of, like Heaven, but now that he’s found himself in it, he wishes he had believed enough to plan for this. He feels lost, small and alone in a world that’s completely shifted on its axis, vast and terrifying and threatening to swallow him whole, and he wishes Harry were here and not wherever the Hell he’s gone off to (he hopes it’s not Hell) and left his mangled, dead body on the floor next to Louis, who doesn’t know what the fuck to do.

Fizzy’s pulse quickens under his fingers, soft noises coming from her as she begins to stir. Reluctantly, he lets go of Harry, trying to wipe some of the blood off his left hand and onto his jeans. “Hey Fizz,” he says, voice wobbling. Instinct starts to take over, grounding him a little, but not enough. “Come on, wake up.” He tries to remember what color Fizzy’s eyes are and comes up with nothing. “Hey, sweetie, open your eyes, hey? You’re safe, I’ve got you, come on.”

Her eyes are a greenish-gray, wide and confused as she blinks awake and looks up at him. He feels his breath catch in his chest. She frowns, and he feels pressure building in his throat.

“Fizz,” he says again. “Hey, hey, how are you doing?”

“Fine,” she says, quietly. “What, who—” His heart gives a pang, and he tries not to let the welling tears spill over. _She doesn’t recognize you_ , he thinks. _That’s okay._ “Lou?” she says, then, and he feels hot tracks down his cheeks. He doesn’t want to let go of her to wipe them away.

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “Hey, little sis.”

“How—” She coughs. “What happened? Who...there was someone in me, I—”

“She’s gone,” Louis soothes, running his fingers through her hair on impulse. “You’re okay. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She wiggles a little, and winces. “Kinda sore,” she says. Her eyelids begin to flutter again, and then she yawns. “Tired,” she mumbles. “Just gonna…”

Part of Louis wants to wake her up, demand she stay with him, tell him everything, let him explain, but she begins to snore softly, and he notices how dark and awful the circles under her eyes are, and thinks, _sleep_ . _I’ll keep you safe_.

*

The first thing that happens when they come through the door, Fizzy in Louis’ arms and clinging to his back like a koala, head lolling on his shoulder, is that Lottie screams and launches herself toward them, and Louis nearly falls over backward with the force of her impact, but she holds tightly and pulls back so that he steadies, and he can’t see her face but he can feel how she’s shaking, her little sobs muffled by Fizzy’s sweater. After a while, he realizes she’s talking, chanting, “You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re safe.”

“She is,” Louis says, rubbing Lottie’s back on instinct. “She’s safe, she’s okay, I got her.”

Lottie pulls back at that to look at him, eyes pink and watery and mascara all down her face to her chin. “I meant you both,” she says, choked. “You’re both safe.”

Louis feels himself start to cry again at that, and he lets it happen. “Yeah,” he manages.

“You’re covered in blood,” Lottie says, as if she’s just noticing. Maybe she is. Louis had kind of forgotten, although he’s fairly used to being covered in all sorts of grime, blood being among the most common. “Are you hurt?”

An image of Harry’s shredded body flashes unbidden in front of his eyes, and he squeezes them shut against it, which Lottie must interpret as pain (which it is, although not physical) because she tugs at his arm and leads him over to the bed, peeling Fizzy off of him and into her own arms.

“Where does it hurt?” she asks, businesslike.

 _Everywhere_ , Louis thinks, which is stupid, because he’s not actually injured, and the awful feeling he wants to go away is lodged in his throat. “It doesn’t,” he croaks. “Great nursing, though. You’d be an awesome nurse.”

Lottie looks at him oddly. “I’m studying nursing,” she says. “At school. I thought you knew?”

“No,” he says. “Like Mom.”

“Exactly.” She smiles, and then frowns. “The blood, though.”

“Not mine,” Louis mumbles, at the exact moment that Liam finishes checking the salt lines at the doors and windows and then turns around to ask, “Where’s Harry?”

He can feel them both looking at him, and he wills himself to stay calm, to keep his voice even. He fails, and it cracks, but he manages to say, “Harry’s gone. Not dead, but his vessel is. That’s the, uh, blood.”

“He killed his vessel?” Liam says. “That’s pretty shitty.”

Oh. Louis should tell him. “It’s his own body,” he says. “Or was, I don’t know. He, um. He exorcised Caroline and then jumped into the trap so she had to take him, and, he had his, like, Hellhounds with him, and—” His throat closes, and he has to close his eyes and take deep breaths through his nose.

“Wait,” Lottie says, “but Harry isn’t dead?”

Louis shakes his head, eyes still squeezed shut. “Demons aren’t corporeal. He, um, he left. I don’t know where he went.”

“Shit,” Liam says. “Well, Caroline’s dead. That’s good.”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, knowing he sounds half-hearted at best. He doesn’t feel the relief he’d always imagined, just hollow and scared. “It’s good.” The air feels thin, like there’s not enough oxygen, and it makes him think of smoke. “I’m gonna call Niall,” he hears himself say, and feels himself stand up. “I’m gonna—outside,” he finishes, scurrying out the door and breathing as deeply as he can once it’s shut behind him.

Niall calls him; Louis has suspected, more than once, that he may be psychic, and when he’s voiced as much to Niall, Niall’s laughed and said some variation of _that’d be sick, wouldn’t it?_

“Hey,” Louis says, not even bothering to lighten his voice. “What’s up?”

“Tommo?” Niall sounds seriously alarmed. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Caroline’s dead,” he says. “Fizzy’s safe, she’s with Lottie and Liam.”

“That’s fantastic,” Niall says, enthusiastic but cautious-sounding, too. “You don’t sound too cheery about it, mate.”

Louis ignores the implicit question about his emotional wellbeing. “That demon curing thing you were talking about,” he says. “How does it work?”

“Uh,” Niall says, clearly thrown off a little but taking it in stride. “Well, the general idea is that you inject the demon enough times with purified blood—I’m working on the exact logistics of that, but I think it’s blood blessed by a priest—and they turn human again. There’s a ritual, too, I’m working on the incantations.”

“The demon needs to have a body, right?”

“Ehm,” Niall says, “I’d assume so, yeah. Else there’s nothing to inject.”

Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. “Could—um, what about a body that was dead?”

“What?” Niall says. “You’ve got to explain yourself a wee bit.”

“If I wanted to cure a demon,” Louis grits out, “but his body was all torn up, and he wasn’t in it, what would I need to do?”

“Harry?”

“Harry,” Louis admits, too wrung out to pretend it’s a hypothetical.

“I figured,” Niall mutters. “I dunno. There’s no, like, troubleshooting manual, but my instinct would be to get ‘im back in that body and healed, somehow. I don’t think the ritual is healing, at all. It’s supposed to be quite draining and painful, actually.”

Louis clenches his jaw. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks, Niall.” He pushes the red button and snaps the phone shut without listening to Niall’s protest, turning on one heel and shouldering back into the room.

“Liam,” he says, “I’m going to need a hand with something.”

*

Liam lets out a low whistle. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “They really tore him up, huh.”

“Yep,” Louis says flatly. “You gonna help me, or not?”

“Help,” Liam says, “just...wow.”

They get Harry into the body bag not a moment too soon; the entire process had Louis teetering on the verge of screaming or crying or both, and it’s a relief (and a little bit awful, too) to hear the slide of the zipper and have him covered entirely by plain black material. He’s heavy, but the two of them manage to get him in the back seat.

“Hey,” Liam says, cautious, as Louis turns the key in the ignition. “Uh, hate to ask, but what exactly is the plan with the dead body in the back seat?”

“I’ve got it,” Louis snaps, maybe pressing his foot down on the gas harder than strictly necessary. Liam, blessedly, shuts up, and as they make their way back to the motel where Lottie and Fizzy are barricaded behind every protective enchantment Louis could swing in the limited amount of time they had before someone found Harry’s body—as it stands, someone’s going to come across the fucking enormous pool of blood and the smears and footprints everywhere, and they need to be out of town when that happens, as far away as possible.

 _Yarrow,_ Louis thinks. _Bone of a black cat. Graveyard dirt. A photograph. An empty crossroads, preferably after dark._

He steps harder on the accelerator and relaxes into the rumble of the engine beneath him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to reiterate, HARRY IS NOT DEAD, I AM NOT /THAT/ EVIL. Hope you liked it; please drop a line if you did and/or tell your friends!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Sorry this took longer than I had planned, but we are in the home stretch here! I’m hoping to have this story completed by the time I start school, which is, uh…soon! One more chapter after this (!!!).
> 
> Please pay attention to the tags, as this chapter deals heavily with most of the warnings, especially #past abuse and #trauma. It also deals with some thorny issues around consent and autonomy, and implied past sexual abuse/assault. If you’d rather avoid the more overt references, I’d recommend skipping the passage that begins “a thump from upstairs…” or comment/message me and I’d be glad to provide more detail/a summary/whatever accommodation you might require. 
> 
> A bigger than ever thanks to Kate this time, who is endlessly patient and enthusiastic and consistently gleans exactly what I mean from my usually muddled drafts, points out what’s not working and what is, and helps me clarify the Mess into what you see here. Really, truly would not have made it this far in writing this fic without her. 
> 
> Also there’s a little bit of an oddball pairing in here, which is entirely Jeb’s fault. Hope you like it!

Much as the selfish, reckless part of him wants to go immediately after Harry (and as much as Louis wants to wallow in how much he hates that), the first order of business is getting Fizzy home. Lottie hasn’t left her little sister’s side and Louis gets the feeling he’ll get his head ripped off if he tries to make her, so he doesn’t, nor does he say anything about the way it aches to observe how the two of them have this closed system relationship and can comfort each other without him. He feels like he’s intruding. It’s not untrue, is the thing. Liam doesn’t have any advice for him; he and his sister drifted apart naturally, and see each other once in a while (although not since Liam started hunting), talk on the phone from time to time. Their relationship is, like many things about Liam, absurdly normal, throwing into sharp relief just how bizarre and dysfunctional Louis’ relationship to his family is.

Fizzy’s in the shower. Louis and Lottie have been sitting on opposite ends of the room since she’s been in the bathroom, and neither of them have said a word. Liam’s outside making some calls. Louis can’t just show up at the Deakins’ door announcing himself as Lottie and Fizzy’s long-lost brother who hunts demons, one of whom possessed their daughter. Liam’s working out a way that they can get Fizzy back where she needs to be without getting Louis thrown in jail for the rest of his life. It’s apparently a delicate situation; Louis’ letting him handle it.

Apparently he has to handle the other parts of reuniting with his sisters by himself, and he has no idea what to do now that they’re both safe. He’s not good at this part. What he is good at is inventorying supplies.

He’s counting rock salt shells when Lottie breaks the taut silence.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she says, leaning against the wall that adjoins the bathroom. She doesn’t sound angry, exactly, but there’s the suggestion of a burn to her tone, like embers or kindling. “You’re leaving again.”

Louis sighs. “Lottie,” he starts.

“Save it,” she cuts him off. “It’s fine. Whatever. Nothing I didn’t expect.”

“I’ll come back,” he pleads. “I promise. There’s just some things I have to take care of.”

“Who said we wanted you to come back?” she bites back at him.

His eyes feel hot, and he blinks hard. “Um.” His voice comes out strangled. “You didn’t, I guess, I just—”

“Fuck,” Lottie swears, crossing the room in long strides and throwing her arms around his shoulders. He freezes, hands hovering a few inches from her back.

“Um,” he repeats.

He feels her groan against his chest. “Sorry, Jesus, I’m just...it’s been a bad week.”

Louis chuckles. “No shit,” he says. Tentatively, he brings one hand up to smooth over the ends of her hair, between her shoulderblades. She seems okay with it, so he keeps up the motion, which makes his palm quickly go numb. It’s soothing. “I’m sorry,” he says, into her shoulder. “I really am.”

“I know,” she says. “You got Fizzy back. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. “Liam’s gonna get her home. Keep her safe.”

“Isn’t the demon dead?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “Just can’t be too careful.”

“Can you teach me?”

“Teach you what?”

“How to keep them safe. Um, hunting, or whatever.”

Louis freezes. “You’re really not in any danger,” he says weakly. “I’m just being paranoid.”

She pulls back and moves away from him. “Why won’t you teach me?” she says, crossing her arms and flicking her hair over her shoulder.

Louis swallows around the lump in his throat. _I don’t want to be my dad_ , he thinks, and then shakes his head, because that’s an irrational fear, it’s got to be. He taught Liam to hunt, after all, and only occasionally lost his temper. Liam’s his peer, though, not his headstrong little sister. He thinks about early morning drills and running suicides in penance for wasting bullets and a lot of long, long nights.

“Hello?” Lottie snaps him out of it, waving her hand in front of his face. “Earth to Louis? You spaced out.”

“Sorry,” he says. “Happens sometimes.” He pauses. “Tell you what,” he starts, watching her expression warily, “how about next time I come—if it’s okay—I teach you to shoot. Maybe some other stuff.”

Lottie tilts her head. “Does whatever you’re so itchy to do involve Harry?”

He feels heat rise to his cheeks. “Um.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “You got something to tell me?”

He’s getting whiplash, here. Lottie’s a spitfire, and he’s proud, except that she kind of scares him. She’d make a good hunter, actually, but Louis is glad she isn’t, and if he has anything to say about it, she never will be. There are better things she can put that passion towards, better things she _will_ do with that fire. “Um,” he says, face heating even further. “No?”

“Are you gay?” she asks bluntly. Louis’ choking noise is apparently enough of an affirmative for her. “It’s fine. I was just curious, I don’t care. Fizz is bisexual. Oh, shit!” She claps her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Fuck.”

“Really?” He might actually cry. It’ll be really embarrassing and not at all the display of composed, strong older brother he’s trying to project. “Shit, that’s awesome. I mean, yeah, probably should’ve like, not told me, but. If she ever does tell me, I’ll act surprised.”

Lottie looks at him for a long moment. “She’ll tell you,” she says softly. “Come visit. She’s missed you.” After a long pause, she adds, “I missed you.”

“Missed you too, kiddo,” Louis says, pulling her in for a long hug. They’re still in the same position when Fizzy comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later, towel-drying her wet hair that’s dripping on the floor.

“Way to leave me out,” she says, and joins in.

*

When Fizzy is home with her sister and their adoptive parents, Liam is monitoring the house just in case, and Louis can finally devote his full attention to finding Harry, it takes him two days, six crossroads, and five different demons to get anywhere. By the seventh time he performs the ritual, his patience is wearing thin, and he’s getting desperate; it must show in his manner, because with each progressive summoning the demons have been getting haughtier and more difficult, and he’s exorcised all of them but gotten no joy out of it, digging the shoebox back up and moving on.

This time, the demon who shows up is tall—maybe even taller than Harry—leggy, and blonde, lips pursed and painted a scarlet that matches her eyes. There’s a sort of intimidating composure to her appearance; Louis is suddenly acutely, irritatingly aware of what a wreck he is, covered in dirt and god knows what else and unable to remember when he last slept.

He watches her gaze rake over him and a perfectly arched eyebrow disappear into her sideswept bangs. A smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes narrow. She inclines her head toward him a little.

Right. He’s got to speak first. “Do you know Harry?” he asks, bluntly. It’s pointless to beat around the bush; the demon will do it anyway. “Crossroads demon, I think he works mostly in California. Curly hair, bunch of tattoos, talks really slow.”

“I know him,” the demon says. Her voice is lower and softer than he would’ve expected, but there’s still something unsettling about her. _Well, duh_ , he thinks. _She’s a demon. And not Harry._ “Why do you ask?”

“I want to talk to him,” he says, rolling his eyes even though it twinges and threatens to worsen the constant, low-level headache he’s been nursing for days. “Why else?”

“Just asking,” the demon says mildly. “Has it occurred to you that he might not want to talk to you?”

 _Yes._ “No,” Louis says. “So if you wouldn’t mind telling me where he is, that would be great.”

“He’s in the Pit,” the demon says, with a tight frown. “He was last I heard, anyway. It’s kind of, like, chaotic down there right now.”

His ears perk up. None of the other demons he’d talked to had made any reference to anything going on in Hell. “What’s going on?” he says sharply. “What do you mean?”

The demon shrugs her narrow shoulders. “The big boss is gone. Everyone and their mother wants her job. It’s kind of a free-for-all.”

“And Harry?” Louis presses.

“Just heard he was down there,” she says, glib. “Anything else, or do you want to just let me out of this trap?”

He startles; they usually don’t notice until he points it out. “Nah,” he says, going for casual. “Don’t think I will. Not unless you help me talk to him.”

She tilts her head. “What do you want with him?”

Louis frowns. “Why do you care?”

Her blood-red lips purse for a moment. “I’m not sure that’s your business,” she says, putting her hands on her hips and giving him a truly withering look.

“Alright. I’ll just be going, then. Good luck getting out.”

She makes a little annoyed sound in the back of her throat. “Oh, for—fine, fine. You can talk to him, just a second.”

“Huh?” The demon doesn’t respond, instead closing her eyes with a look of concentration. “What do you mean?”

No response; she crumples to the ground, limp and awkwardly splayed with her hair covering her face. Louis blinks, unsure of what to do and becoming suddenly aware of how hard he’s shaking and how he can’t stop it, nor can he seem to take a step. The jitters wracking his body have just grown worse over these past few days, more intense than they’ve ever been, and when he stays still they become unbearable.

He doesn’t know how long it is before she begins to stir, but he immediately moves so he can see her face, crouching down slightly. “What the fuck was that?” he asks, impatient. “Where is he?”

Her brow scrunches. “What?”

Louis freezes. This isn’t the same being he was just talking to—maybe the host has just woken up, and Louis’ stomach drops at the thought that he’ll have to put this on hold to take care of the possession victim, and he _hates_ that, but—

“Harry?” he croaks. The wary expression he’s greeted with makes his breath hitch in his throat; he knows that look, even on an unfamiliar face, just like he knows the way Harry stands, knock-kneed and awkward, even more so with these longer limbs.

Louis breathes out, long and low, trying to keep his hands from twitching. “Not sure about the new suit,” he says mildly.

“Borrowed it from a friend,” Harry mumbles, voice too high and sickeningly Northeastern, although he still speaks much slower than the demon Louis had just been talking to. “The fit’s a bit off.” He worries at the sleeve of the jacket, shifting his shoulders.

“A friend?” Louis raises an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t get along with the other demons?”

“Taylor owed me one,” Harry says.

“Wait, you were in there all along? Is that even possible?”

“It’s possible,” Harry says flatly. “It’s a tight fit, though.” He sighs. “What do you want, Louis?”

Louis reels back slightly. “Um.” Harry’s supposed to know what he wants. Louis thought it was obvious, written across his forehead and flashing behind him in neon, _I want you I want you I want you._ “I wanted to...talk?” He hates how unsure his voice sounds.

“Okay,” Harry says, still dull and all wrong, watching him like Louis might attack at any moment. “Talk.”

“Fizzy’s good,” Louis says, his voice sounding a little unnaturally loud to his ears. “She doesn’t really remember anything. Cops took her back to her parents’. Liam’s keeping an eye on the place for a bit.”

“That’s good,” Harry says. He hasn’t moved.

“Lottie’s staying there, too,” Louis continues. “She’s thinking about taking a leave of absence from school.”

Harry’s borrowed face stays impassive. “That’s...too bad.”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “She wants me to teach her to hunt. I said no.”

“Well...I’m glad everyone’s okay,” Harry says.

 _What the fuck is wrong with you_ , Louis thinks. “Why’d you leave?” he blurts out.

“Those were the terms of our deal,” Harry says, listless. He won’t meet Louis’ eyes, just staring at a spot somewhere far off where Louis can’t see anything that could be diverting Harry’s attention. Harry just doesn’t want to look at him.

“Oh.” Louis tries not to look wounded; he’s pretty sure he fails. “Well. Very professional of you, good job.”

“Louis,” Harry sighs. He doesn’t sound pleading, just tired, but Harry saying his name ignites something in Louis.

“Don’t fucking _Louis_ me. Was it just a deal to you, then? Just doing your job?”

Harry keeps staring at something far away. “Why does it matter?”

Louis swallows the urge to shout. “Because it does,” he says. “What the fuck, Harry?”

“I did the job,” Harry says. “What more do you want?”

 _You_ , Louis thinks, _you you you_. The sinking feeling in his gut grows heavier with each passing second. This isn’t his Harry, inside or out, and it scares him.

“I want you to fucking look at me when we’re talking,” Louis snaps, taking a step towards him and catching the minute flinch he gets in response with a sort of savage satisfaction at provoking some reaction out of Harry, even though in the next moment he hates himself. He feels like he might at any second grab fistfuls of own his hair and yank so hard he pulls his own scalp loose.

With what looks like deliberate effort, Harry meets his eyes. They’re all wrong, blue and too narrow and Louis wishes he could read them, but he’s not getting anything, just an impervious, brick-wall stare. He looks away first, flushing. The first time they were in this position, Harry had gotten right under his skin, and Louis had hated it. He hates this, too, but differently. It’s like Harry had hooked into his skin from that first meeting, and when he left, he took a few layers with him, so Louis is all raw and flayed and vulnerable, skin smarting and blood right at the surface. Or something like that.

“What I want,” Louis hears himself say, “is for you to fix your damn meatsuit and hop back in. I want you to stick around.”

Harry blinks. “Why?”

Louis splutters, hating how obvious his reactions are when Harry’s just impassive. “You should—you know why!”

“No,” Harry says, “I don’t.”

“Because I want you around,” Louis says, fighting the lump that’s rising in his throat and strangling his syllables. He’s not going to fucking cry.

“You shouldn’t.”

Louis coughs and blinks hard. “Well, too fuckin’ bad, then.”

“I’m a demon,” Harry says.

“I noticed.”

“I’m a _demon_ ,” Harry repeats, like that’ll make his meaning clearer.

“I know,” Louis says. “Jesus Christ, could you quit it with the robot thing?”

Harry just stares past him. “What robot thing?” He doesn’t even lilt upwards at the end of the sentence to make it a real question.

“That, Jesus, that emotionless fucking—I don’t know, it’s just freaking me out.”

“I don’t have emotions,” Harry says. “Not the way humans do.”

Those are Louis’ words; now, coming from Harry’s borrowed mouth, they sound callous and cold and—god, Louis may have fucked up. But Harry just _left_.

“That’s not true,” Louis says, “and you know it. C’mon, Harry. What happened to _you make me feel more human_?”

“I’m not human,” Harry says. “I should stop pretending.”

The words are on the tip of Louis’ tongue, but he swallows them back down. He has no idea if the cure Niall found will even work. He doesn’t want to get Harry’s hopes up. “Spare me the pity party,” he says. “You need a body, don’t you? If you want to stay topside?”

“Yes.”

“You _do_ want to stay topside, right?”

Another barely perceptible flinch. “Yes.”

Louis claps his hands together. “Then okay. Let’s get your suit fixed up.”

“Not worth it,” Harry says dully.

“Why not?”

“Because it isn’t.”

“What, are you just going to stay in here with whatserface forever?”

“No,” Harry says. “I’ll find something else.”

“Possess someone else, you mean.”

Harry shrugs. “Maybe.”

Louis sort of feels like screaming. “What happened to fucking ethically sourced vessels? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’m a demon,” Harry says in that _fucking_ deadened monotone. “What do you expect?”

“I expect you to act like your damn self!” Louis snaps.

Harry sighs, and shifts his weight so he’s leaning it on the right leg of the borrowed body that fits him all wrong. “Did you bring me back up to yell at me, or did you want something?”

Louis could cry with frustration. Instead, he says, “I want you to have your own body.”

Harry blinks. “And?”

Louis takes a deep breath, and gives the ultimatum he was hoping he wouldn’t have to. “And if you won’t fix it yourself, I’ll find a demon who will, although I’m pretty sure their price will be higher.”

“No,” Harry says sharply, the most emotive he’s been this entire conversation. “You can’t do that.”

“I can,” Louis says. “And I will.” It’s a lie, but it’s not much of one, not really.

“That’s stupid.”

“Well,” Louis says, “I’m stupid, so it’s fine. I’m sure there are plenty of demons who’d be happy to deal.”

The pause stretches like a rubber band, pulled so taut it’s translucent in the middle. “Fine,” Harry says. He doesn’t sound upset, nor does he sound happy. There’s just nothing, and it makes Louis feel sick. “I’ll do it, whatever.”

He doesn’t feel the usual sense of gratification he does when he’s won. Harry’s just folding, but Louis will have to take what he gets. “Come back to Niall’s with me,” he says.

“Okay.”

Louis blinks. He was expecting some argument on that, but it looks like he’s not getting anything. “Alright. So…”

“So I need something in return,” Harry says. “That’s how this works.”

“Okay,” Louis agrees. “What do you want?”

Harry looks at him for a split second and then drops his gaze. “Could I...nevermind.”

“No, what?” Louis presses.

Harry’s quiet for a long time, and Louis can barely hear him when he speaks, looking down at the ground. “Could I, um, could I use your body? Just until I fix mine, or whatever. Taylor needs this one back.”

“Uh.” Louis wants to say _no_ , say _fuck it_ and walk away, get drunk and get to work on forgetting this whole chapter of his life, but he can’t. He can’t back out now, he can’t stop moving or else he’ll implode. “Okay, I guess.”

“I’ll give it back right away,” Harry says. “You can be awake, if you want, or whatever. It’s up to you.”

Louis stills, heart pounding, remembering dark and smoke and fire and someone else moving his limbs and waking up knowing he’d done something but not knowing what. “Um,” he says. “I think I’d like to, yeah. Could I, um, could I be in control? Some of the time?”

“Sure,” Harry says. “Oh, wait. Your tattoo.”

“Shit,” Louis curses. _Oh well._ He bends to take his Bowie knife from his boot, and before he can think about it, he yanks the waistband of his jeans down far enough that he can slice through where he knows the tattoo is. It fucking stings, and tears well up in his eyes, but he fights them. He scrapes at the outer circle of the trap until there’s a gap, then re-sheaths the knife and tucks it back in place, wincing as the movement stretches the cut, air invading the soft tissue. His heart pounds faster. “Done,” he says, knowing it’s redundant. “Let’s do this.”

“Wait, one more thing.”

“What?” Louis puts pressure on the wound; it’s deeper than he’d meant it to be. Part of him is laughing hysterically, thinking of how he must look, panting and grabbing his own ass, which is bleeding quite insistently.

“Where is my body, anyway?”

“Industrial freezer,” Louis says through gritted teeth. “Liam found it on Craigslist.”

Harry laughs, short and dark and not right-sounding, but a laugh nonetheless, his first since before the warehouse with Caroline, and Louis takes the opportunity to steel himself and pull Harry forward by the lapels of his jacket, smearing the white fabric with blood, and kiss him. It tastes waxy and strange—Louis assumes it’s the lipstick—and not at all like Harry, all wrong, but then it changes with Harry’s exhale.

It doesn’t taste like smoke. It doesn’t taste like anything, really, rushing in faster than Louis can register the sensation, every tissue in his body stretching to accommodate, and it’s so intimate and overwhelming that Louis finds himself thinking of all the sexual experiences he would classify as mind-blowing and how they haven’t got anything on this, and it’s not—it’s not sex. Harry’s just there, with him, _in him_ , as close as they can possibly be. It’s sort of wonderful, except that it’s terrifying, being swept up in the current of someone else, someone _not human_ but so familiar nonetheless. He bobs along, adjusting, and then he feels a snag, the undercurrent pulling him downwards.

“What the fuck,” he hears himself say, distantly, almost not even there, like he’s listening from below the water, being tugged down and down and down, and it takes his breath away how sad and frightened and angry he feels, terrifying images flashing through his consciousness faster than he can register them as more than blurs of colors and light and the sound of screaming _._ He’s running from something, someone, and every time he looks over his shoulder, the shadowy form is gaining on him, and he knows in his gut that when it catches up to him, he’s done for. He searches, desperately, for somewhere safe, but there’s only vast, cavernous darkness, in which anything might be lurking. Still, because he has nothing else to do, he keeps running, even as his every nerve sings with pain.

It fucking _hurts_ , but more than that, he’s just so, so afraid, so scared he’s choking on it, going to drown in the certainty that something awful is going to happen to him and he won't be able to do anything to stop it.

 _Shh_ , he hears a low voice say from somewhere nearby. _Sleep._ He falls.

*

Louis wasn’t there when Troy died, which he wasn’t expecting, and which, in retrospect, he should have. He didn’t feel any kind of premonitory dread, at least no more than he did normally—he just went down the street to get dinner, and when he came back to the motel, grease-soaked bags in hand, his father was dead.

The door was open and the salt line behind it broken but other than that, the room was mostly undisturbed. Troy was just sprawled out on the floor, neck snapped. His head had been turned all the way around so that it was facing backwards, and Louis had dropped the food, stumbled into the bathroom, and vomited in the grimy porcelain sink.

He doesn’t remember a lot after that. He would come to every so often and find himself in the middle of something: salting and burning the body; driving; drinking; fucking nameless stranger after nameless stranger. He was able to figure out, later, that the fugue state lasted about a month, and every now and then, he’ll hear a phrase or smell something that knocks him back into a brand-new memory that leaps out of the black hole of that time, and he’s disoriented for a minute before he adds it to the collection, trying to fill in the blanks, as if his memory is a crossword with a set of clues that are cryptic at best, some written in other languages and others not there at all, just blank spaces, mocking him.

It’s a long time—years—before he remembers that the salt line had been broken from the inside, scuffed through with a busted-up sneaker, size 7. Something in him is grateful that his brain decided to repress that knowledge in the immediate aftermath, to give Louis some time to recuperate before he realized it was his own carelessness that had killed his father, like his mind knew that that piece would push him over the edge and was trying to protect him from himself. Still, he can’t help but feel, at times, that it would’ve been better if he’d just remembered then, when no one would have cared if he’d just disappeared.

*

He wakes up aching all over and freezing cold.

“You’re awake,” he hears from a few feet away. The voice is croaky and quiet but unmistakable.

Louis wheezes a little, coughing, before he manages, “I am.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says. It sounds better in his real voice, but it’s still devoid of any inflection, and Louis has to concentrate to hear the faint strain in it. “I couldn’t—I had hoped I’d be able to keep my, um, my thoughts away from you, but.”

Louis remembers pain, remembers running. His limbs twitch. “Some thoughts,” he breathes.

“You get used to it,” Harry says. Louis inclines his head to indicate he should elaborate, but he stays infuriatingly silent.

“So,” Louis says, heart beginning to thump as he realizes that Harry put him to sleep and rode his body for he doesn’t know how long, a part of him wanting to scream and cry like a child even though there’s not really any reason to. He doesn’t like not remembering. “I take it you, um, succeeded, then.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Harry says. “Came here, fixed m’self up. That’s it.” The timing of his speech is a little off, too, like his breathing is uneven. “You were freaking out, that’s why I took over.”

Louis hoists himself up onto his elbows, the movement producing a small cacophony of popping noises. Something feels wrong, but he can’t put his finger on it. “Okay,” he says. “I believe you.” _You believe him_ , he tells himself. _He doesn’t lie to you._

“Thanks,” Harry says. When Louis looks over at him, his breath hitches a little at how wrecked and exhausted he looks, too-pale, dark bruises under his eyes, his hair still matted with blood. There’s blood all over him, actually, although his organs are no longer spilling out of his chest cavity, so it’s an improvement.

“You need a shower,” Louis says. “Like, right now.” So does Louis, actually, and _shit,_ he remembers that he’d cut through his anti-possession tattoo, but it doesn’t hurt, bizarrely; he’ll have to take a look, and dig out the pentagram necklace he has in his bag somewhere. He’s had quite enough of being possessed for a lifetime.

Harry doesn’t laugh, just lets his head fall a few more degrees downward and says, quietly, “Okay.”

*

The motel room feels bizarrely empty now that Fizzy, Lottie, and Liam have cleared out, but Louis’ sort of glad for it, in a way; god knows how this Harry will interact with his sisters, and Louis doesn’t want to, god forbid, get between them. He’d pick the girls, any time, but he doesn’t want to have to make the choice. Liam would have a million questions. He’s already texted Louis upwards of 20 times.

Harry claims the bed by the window, and immediately goes to shower. Louis opens the window and furtively lights a cigarette after checking for passersby. Gingerly, he sits down on the sill; a brief inspection had revealed that Harry had been courteous enough to heal the cut through Louis’ tattoo, leaving a nasty scar splitting it in half, which didn’t hurt but felt strange nonetheless. After a few drags, he makes a call.

“I don’t know what to do, Niall,” he says. “It’s like he’s dead.”

“Well,” Niall points out, “he kind of is, isn’t he?”

“Not what I meant,” Louis snaps. “What the fuck do I do?”

“Dunno, mate. I’m not an expert in, like, demon psychology. Try and talk to ’im, I s’pose.”

“He won’t talk,” Louis bites out, frustrated. “That’s the problem. It’s like everything I say I’m somehow putting my foot in my mouth.” He ashes the cigarette and sticks it back in the corner of his mouth, where there’s a tiny cut that stings when the filter touches it.

“Well, that’s not out of the ordinary, then.”

Louis exhales through his nose. “I’m serious.”

“Alright.” Niall’s tone sobers. “I have been doin’ some research, what with the cure and all, just tryin’ to suss out how it works.”

“And?”

“Not really sure. I mean, I’m not sayin’ it doesn’t, it seems solid, but y’know me, always wantin’ to be thorough. Near as I can tell, the whole, like, base of demon existence is like…not feeling?”

Louis frowns. It nearly makes him drop his cigarette. “Harry feels,” he argues. _He can’t love_ , he remembers Caroline taunting. _He doesn’t remember what it feels like._

“I know he does,” Niall says. “He’s a bit of an oddball. But he’s still a demon, isn’t he? He’s been through a lot. Maybe it’s easier to just shut down.” His next words are cautious, measured. “Lou, d’you remember how you were after your da died?”

Louis laughs hollowly. “A fucking wreck,” he says. “I don’t remember too well.” _You didn't even see the worst of it_ , he thinks. _You came in later._

“Well,” Niall says, “most of the time it was like you were somewhere else. Unless you were yelling or shooting something. Even then it was a bit like trying to talk to you through water or something.”

“It’s not the same thing, Niall,” Louis says. He knows where this is going, and he doesn’t like it. He sucks at the cigarette, almost burnt down to the filter, and flicks the ash off the end.

“Isn’t it?”

He can probably get two more drags out of this one. He needs to buy more; he will, after. He hasn’t wanted to leave Harry, even though Harry won’t talk to him or acknowledge his existence most of the time. Well, not really _even though_. It’s more of a _because_. “He was tortured! God knows what she did to him, she kept saying these things—”

“Louis,” Niall cuts him off, “your da hit you, didn’t he?”

Louis drops the cigarette he’d been holding at his side and hisses, sticking his singed fingertips in his mouth. “Fuck!”

“I thought so,” Niall says, quiet and sad.

Louis swallows down the venom he wants to spit and lights another American Spirit. “So what if he did,” he says. “It’s still not the same, and I still have no fucking clue what to say. ‘Hey, Harry, my old man knocked me around sometimes, so I totally get how you feel about being tortured in Hell for centuries, let’s talk about it.’ Sounds great.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Niall says. “How far out d’you reckon y’are?”

Louis exhales. “He’s not in any shape to drive, so three days if I really gun it.”

“Right. I’ve got a priest comin’ out tomorrow to consecrate the bunker.”

Louis frowns. “You’ve got a priest? What, you just keep one on hand in the basement?”

“Not a bad idea,” Niall says, “but no, twat, I meant I know a priest. Many, actually.”

“How do you know so many priests?”

“I’m Irish.”

Louis laughs. “You’re so full of shit.”

“A bit,” Niall concedes. “Anyhow, the purified blood is a little trickier. It’s best if it’s fresh, from what I understand. I dunno if blood in a bag is going to cut it. Besides, holding up a blood bank is a fuckhead thing to do. Don’t want to use a rando’s blood either. I’ve not got any proof of this, but it seems like it’s best if the blood is from someone with some kind of connection to the person being cured.”

 _I feel more human around you_ , Louis thinks. “We can use mine,” he says. “What do I need to do?”

“Simplest would be to just get it blessed by a priest. I’ll draw some from meself and have Father Gregory bless it tomorrow, but if you want to, go right ahead.”

“I don’t know any priests.” He feels a sudden sharp pang, missing Father Ray fiercely.

“Well,” Niall says. “The other way would be to go to Confession, and then draw the blood afterwards.”

“Confession,” Louis repeats. Louis hasn’t been to Confession since...he’s not sure when. Before the fire, definitely.

Niall chuckles. “You don’t sound too excited there, mate.”

“Not really,” Louis says. “I guess it’s not too smart to go marching into a church with a tupperware full of blood, though.”

“Is that the start to a joke?” Louis freezes and whips his head around. Harry’s voice is hoarse from disuse and his eyes are dull, but he’s talking, which Louis counts as progress. That, and not being covered in blood. His skin is a little pink, like it’s been scrubbed too hard.

“Hi,” Louis says dumbly. “I was just talking to Niall.”

“I’ll take that as my cue to leave,” Niall says. “Bye, Lou. Bye, Harry.”

“Niall says bye,” Louis says.

Harry nods, wrapping his hair in a towel. He’s got another tied around his waist and a third draped around his shoulders. Louis half-considers making fun of him for it, or bitching at him for taking all the towels, but it’s just a fleeting impulse, and it quells to a sort of bemused fondness.

“Harry says bye,” Louis says into the phone, and hangs up. “Y’alright?”

Harry shrugs, and then nods his head. It unravels the towel. “’M fine,” he says, bending over to re-wrap it. The towel on his shoulders slips down and Louis gasps when he catches a glimpse of dark pink scar tissue clawed into Harry’s side, the birdcage tattoo disfigured past the point of recognition; he wouldn’t know what it was had he not seen it before, run his thumb over the lines and felt the slight unevenness as he arched his back. He flushes at the memory, and at the same moment, Harry looks up. They lock eyes for a split second and Louis’ breath hitches, something in Harry’s eyes that he thinks means _now, now, this is the moment, say something_ , but then it passes, and Harry fixes his towel before he disappears back into the bathroom, the door closing quietly behind him.

*

In the morning, they get breakfast: fruit and oatmeal for Harry, and French toast for Louis, who finds himself, despite his efforts not to, staring as Harry loads each spoonful of cereal with a piece of fruit and, still, sticks his tongue out before the bite makes it into his mouth. That’s more or less the same, as is the way Harry sticks his straw in the side of his mouth to take sips of his orange juice and the way he chews everything with his molars, but there’s something—many things, maybe—different about him, something Louis isn’t going to figure out from watching him eat, but he can’t bring himself to stop trying anyway. He’s so focused that he forgets about his own breakfast until it’s cold and soggy, saturated with syrup and falling apart in places.

He wolfs it all down, because he really is hungry, and then, when he’s done, feels self-conscious about how fast he was. He looks up to Harry to see if he’s watching him reproachfully, but Harry isn’t watching him, just pushing the few raspberries he has left around the plate.

“You don’t like raspberries?” Louis blurts out.

Harry startles slightly, then coughs. “No,” he says.

“I’ll take ’em, then.” Louis reaches across the table and plucks two from the plate, sticking them in his mouth. They’re a little sour, but good, still. He does the same with the rest, and Harry lets him.

“So,” Louis says, when there’s nothing left to occupy his mouth, “What’s up?”

Harry blinks at him. “What?” he says, after a while.

Louis’ face feels hot, but he plows forward. Maybe pretending everything’s normal—well, as normal as it’s ever been between them—will help. “How’s things? How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Harry says.

“Good. Good.” Louis cringes inwardly. As abnormal as it’s always been, it’s never been this difficult or awkward to talk to Harry. “Um. So. What, uh...where did you go when you, um, left?”

“Hell,” Harry says. He’s still looking at his plate, as if something’s going to appear on it if he stares hard enough. Well. Harry could probably swing that, come to think of it.

“Why?”

Harry glances up at him, briefly, eyes green but spacey, and then looks back down. “I had some things to take care of,” he says quietly.

“Like what?” Louis presses.

“Why is it your business?” Harry’s tone isn’t annoyed, still just flat, but there’s something else to it Louis can’t pick out.

His own ire is rising, and he bites his lip harshly to get some of it out, lest he start yelling in this diner. He doesn’t answer the question. “Did something happen down there?”

“Maybe.”

“What?”

Harry shrugs. “Why do you care?”

Louis tastes blood, suddenly realizing how hard he’s been chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Because I do,” he says, as evenly as he can manage, “and because you’re acting fucking weird, and I want to know why.”

Harry sets his silverware across his plate with a quiet, metallic clang. He straightens them, and doesn’t look up at Louis. “This is what I am,” he says. “Sorry it’s not what you wanted.”

“This isn’t you,” Louis argues. “Before, you weren’t—you weren’t like this.”

“Before, I was trying to be something I’m not,” Harry says smoothly, and pushes himself sideways along the booth, standing up. “You of all people should understand that.”

Louis feels his heart freeze in his chest cavity, mid-beat. “What?” he hears himself say. “What the fuck does that mean?” There are people looking at them; they should leave, but Louis can’t move, just feels the prickle of curious gazes surrounding him.

Harry’s expression flickers momentarily, and then smooths out so quickly Louis can’t be sure he didn’t imagine the tiny waver to it, the moment of what looked like pain.When he speaks, Harry’s voice is low and deadly, edged like a poisoned blade. “I swear it was just once, Dad. He came on to me. It was a mistake, sir. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Before Louis can react, do anything except fish-mouth and stare, his legs numb and immobile, Harry tosses a twenty on the table and turns on his heel to walk out the door.

After an indeterminate amount of time in which he remains, immobile, in the booth, with half the diner looking at him, Louis follows Harry out, and finds him waiting in the passenger seat, already buckled. He thinks, hard, about saying _get out_ , but his tongue feels gluey and his jaw is sealed shut, and he’s grateful for the sunglasses he slides down, and for open highways, and for ninety-mile-per-hour speed limits.

*

He calls Lottie when they stop for the night—he’d been planning on finding a motel in Toledo, maybe Chicago if he was going to push it, but at each opportunity to exit he found himself seizing up with anxiety, and it was only once it was nearing pitch-black and he caught himself beginning to drift off that he wordlessly flipped on his turn signal and took the exit that would bring them—Harry was sleeping, or else just pretending to (Louis didn’t want to look at him long enough to decide)—into Milwaukee.

“Hello?” Lottie says. She doesn’t sound sleepy; it had occurred to him while the phone is ringing that he might be waking her up, and he was seized with guilt.

“Hi,” he says. “How are you?”

“Good,” she says, a little wary-sounding. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Louis says. “Just calling to check in.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “Do you want to talk to Fizzy? I can get her up.”

“No, no,” he rushes, feeling his throat stick a little. “That’s fine. I’ll let you go, if you want.”

“Um,” she says, “no, that’s okay. How—how are you?”

“Good.”

“That’s good.” Louis sort of wants to cry. He should hang up. “I’ll just, um. Talk to you later, okay?”

He thinks he hears her sigh, and then she says, “Okay, yeah. Talk to you soon.”

Louis doesn’t know who to call; he doesn’t know how to deal with this, or to even describe what he’s so upset about. It’s stupid that he’s so upset about it. Of course Harry poked around in his head; Louis had let him possess him, and that was part of the package. It was stupid not to think of it, or to think that Harry wouldn’t, that he would stop himself from invading Louis’ memories. Except that it wasn’t, because Louis’ Harry would have. This new Harry, though. Louis doesn’t know what to expect from him.

He stares at the phone, scrolling through his four contacts. Liam—he’d have to explain everything. Lottie, he just called, and he wouldn’t dream of putting this on her, even if she did want to hear it. Niall knows enough of it that he’d probably be a safe bet, but Louis has already asked so much of him. The last one on the list gives him pause for a few seconds before he shakes his head and snaps his phone shut. What would he even say? _Hey, Zayn, I know we haven’t talked in over a year since you left me to run around with a demon, but hey, I’m running around with a demon now, and I let him possess me and he saw some memories of my dad and then he recited something I said to my dad when he walked in on me fucking a guy. What’s up with you?_

Sighing, he flips the phone shut and stuffs it back in his pocket. It takes him a few seconds to psych himself up enough to go back into the room, which he feels stupid for.

Harry looks up when he comes in. He’s in bed, already, covers pulled up to his chin so that only his head is visible. He looks small like this, vulnerable, and Louis feels an involuntary pang of sympathy and protectiveness. He lingers in the doorway, holding Harry’s gaze, not knowing what he’s expecting—an apology? Another memory that feels like a silver-tipped arrow?—but Harry doesn’t talk, and so Louis breaks the moment by crossing the room to brush his teeth and shower, getting in the other bed without a word. He wishes for something to help him sleep—a pill, a drink, a good blow to the head—but nothing comes, and he just stares at the back of Harry’s head and the shape of him, underneath the covers, turned away from Louis.

Sometime around midnight, when Louis is just starting to nod off, eyelids becoming truly, blessedly heavy, he hears something like a whimper. Immediately, he’s wide awake, silently reaching under the pillow for his knife and holy water, but it takes him a few seconds to realize that the noise is coming from Harry, and that Harry’s still in bed, and that the moonlight slanting across his form from the window isn’t static but instead trembling in time with the shake of Harry’s shoulders.

Louis’ immediate instinct is to rush over to him, but the one that says _hold back_ is quick enough on its heels to stop him from doing much more than shifting under the sheets, reaching a hand in Harry’s direction. He stays, frozen, caught between the sharp, stinging desire to hold and comfort and the desire to protect himself from whatever mental weapons Harry must have been sitting on since his stint in Louis’ body, as he had proved this morning, but Louis’ never been great with self-preservation for its own sake, and he slides out of bed and pads over to the other, gingerly sitting down on the edge.

Harry doesn’t seem to notice the way the mattress dips with Louis’ weight. Up closer, Louis can lean over and see that his eyes are open and solid red, but unseeing, clearly somewhere else. His breath is harsh but small and shallow, like he’s trying to keep as quiet as possible. Every now and then, an inhale or exhale seems to catch and make an awful, animalistic whining sound. Louis can see Harry’s hands fisted in the sheets, rhythmically gripping and twisting, knuckles going silver-white in the moonlight with how hard he’s holding on.

Heart thumping in his ears, Louis makes a choice, and reaches one hand out—slowly, slowly—to alight on Harry’s covered shoulder, thinking vaguely how strange it is for Harry to wear clothes to bed, before Harry yelps and twists barely a half breath after Louis makes contact, limbs flailing out, his elbow catching Louis across the chest and knocking the wind out of him.

“No!” Harry screams, raw and awful, like it’s being wrenched out of him without his permission. When Louis recovers enough to look, he realizes that Harry’s not fighting him—Harry’s not _seeing_ him—but rather thrashing against an unknown assailant, eyes wide and terrified and staring at nothing. “No, no, no!” _Night terrors_ , Louis realizes. A nurse he doesn’t remember said he’d been having them at the hospital, which was why they sedated him at night. He’d try to rip out all of his tubes and wires and scream loud enough to wake up other patients. He had a few in the home, too, and they had continued when he moved in with his birth father, until Troy got fed up and took him to a doctor who gave him sedatives. Troy would forget to renew the prescription, though, and alcohol worked just as well, Louis discovered after a while. He had never seen one from this side, though, and he doesn’t know what to do.

There doesn’t seem to be anything he can do. Touching Harry makes him scream and cry louder. He doesn’t seem to hear Louis when he talks to him, although that doesn’t stop Louis from keeping up a neverending stream of nonsense talk that he forgets as soon as he’s said it. It seems like all he can do is wait, and it makes him want to throw up, the impulse to just run out the door and slam it shut behind him growing until it feels like it’s going to burn him alive.

“Don’t touch me,” Harry pleads, in a broken, nasal whine, limbs jerking against invisible restraints. “No, no, no, NO—” Louis feels his eyes heat with the threat of tears. He can’t watch this. He can’t, he can’t watch someone suffering like this when there’s nothing he can do, even if he doesn’t know this new Harry, the one who knew exactly where to stick the knife and how to twist and did so without any visible remorse, he feels his own body twist in sympathy, a scream threatening to burst from his mouth—

And then it stops. Harry arches up off the bed, mouth open in a silent scream, every muscle taut, and then he collapses, like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Harry?” Louis tries. He’s not really expecting a response, but he’s still disappointed when he’s met with silence.

After a while, Harry’s soft snores start up. Louis closes his eyes, but he can’t keep them shut for more than a minute before he’s looking over and checking that Harry’s still there, sleeping peacefully—or at least, outwardly peaceful. _Something happened,_ Louis thinks, with conviction. _Something happened while he was gone. This isn't him._ He texts Niall, asking if he knows any priests on the way back to Washington, preferably within a day’s drive of Milwaukee. Niall immediately replies with a list of three: one in Sioux Falls, one in Rapid City, and another in Gillette. Louis mentally looks at the map; they can make it to Gillette tomorrow, can't they? He glances at Harry’s sleeping form once more and decides that he can, that he must.

The awful idea that even if the ritual succeeds in making Harry human, it may not fix this numbness, nor the detached, occasional cruelty, nor the night terrors slinks around Louis’ mind, taunting him. An even worse voice hisses that even if it fixes _that_ , it won’t fix Louis, that he’ll still have the same raging death-wish and set of neuroses no one in their right mind would ever want to deal with, that he’ll still be toxic and burnt and gnarled at his core, a sickness of a person who ought to stay away from good people lest he infect them. He drowns it out by reciting every ritual he can remember, and when he runs out of those, he begins praying the rosary, like his mother taught him.

He crosses himself and tries to remember the Apostle’s Creed, stumbling over _the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting_ , but he makes it through. The Lord’s Prayer is easier to recall, his mouth shaping the words automatically, and when he finishes _and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil_ , he begins, _Hail Mary, full of Grace_ , and he can’t help picturing his mother, smiling with Lottie on her lap or running out the door to work in her scrubs and tennis shoes or yelling at him to get out of bed and come eat breakfast before he missed the bus. He’s not that concerned about the sacrilege—he’s sure it’s low on the list of his sins, if anyone is actually tallying them—but he misses her, fiercely and completely, pictures her kneeling in the pew at Mass with her head bowed and hands clasped as he recites _pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death_. _Amen_.

*

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”

The priest in the other side of the confessional chuckles. “Very formal. How long has it been since your last confession?”

“Um.” Louis scrunches his nose. He must’ve gone at some point when he was a kid in Catechism, but he’s sure he hasn’t been since his Confirmation. “A long time.”

“Glad you’re here now,” the priest says. “Do you want to do this the old-fashioned way, or would you rather just talk?”

“Huh? I mean, I’m sorry, Father—”

“Let’s just talk, then. What’s on your mind?”

Louis blinks. “This is not what I remember Confession being like.”

The priest laughs. “It’s called Reconciliation now, actually. We can do the formal version if you’re more comfortable. I just had a feeling that that might be a little intimidating.”

“I don’t really remember what I’m supposed to say,” Louis confesses.

“That’s fine. We don’t have to use the booth, either.”

“I’d prefer to,” Louis says. “Thanks.”

“Absolutely. What brings you here today?”

 _I need to purify my blood so I can inject it into this demon, who, by the way, I lay with as with a woman, and turn him back into a human._ Niall had said Father Paul was “down with the whole demon biz,” but Louis’ not keen on telling anyone he doesn’t have to about that plan, especially if it makes his confession hollow and therefore doesn’t work. He’s not sure if that’s a thing, but better safe than sorry.

“Um,” Louis starts, “there’s kind of a lot. I don’t really know where to start.”

“Anywhere is fine. What’s the most pressing thing on your mind? What’s weighing you down?”

“Uh.” Louis scratches at the back of his neck. This priest seems cool enough, but the idea of spilling his guts about Harry and the gigantic fucking smoking wreck their... _whatever_ feels like right now, to a _priest_ , makes him balk instinctively. He coughs. “I um, I just got back in contact with my sisters. I haven’t seen them in thirteen years.”

Father Paul doesn't sound phased. “That’s a long time. Why did you fall out of touch?”

“Our, uh. Our parents died. They’re my half-siblings, so I was sent to live with my birth father. They stayed in the system and got adopted and stuff.” The confessional is uncomfortable, and his back already ached from the twelve hours or so he’d driven today, most of it spent in silence.

“That’s difficult. Splitting up siblings, especially after something so traumatic, is heartless.”

Louis coughs. “Um. Yeah, I guess. Anyway, my dad didn’t really…I mean, he never _said_ I couldn’t see them, but it wasn’t really an option.”

“How so?”

He tastes copper; he hadn’t realized he’d been chewing so hard on that hangnail. The tip of his finger throbs. “Just wasn’t. Um, my dad was a little bit…I don’t know.” He stops before he gets stupidly choked up. He doesn’t talk about this. “We didn’t have the greatest relationship.”

“I see,” Father Paul says. “I’m sorry.”

“’s fine,” Louis says. “I mean, I was a difficult kid.”

Father Paul’s sigh is audible, but he doesn’t press. “Is there difficulty between you and your sisters, now that you’ve reconnected?”

“Yes. Um, Lottie, the oldest—she’s nineteen—she, um, she’s angry that I, like, disappeared. And I get it, she has every right to be. Which is why I’m telling you. I just abandoned them.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that assessment, but okay. Let’s say you did abandon them, and that was wrong. What do you feel would repair that situation? What should your penance be?”

Louis frowns. “Aren’t you supposed to just give me a bunch of Hail Mary’s to do?” He’d practiced last night for a reason. A lot of reasons, actually, but this was at least part of it.

“Would that fix your relationship with your sisters or heal your guilt?” There’s a trace of laughter in the priest’s voice. This is not what Louis remembers Confession being like, not at all.

“Uh, no. Probably not.”

“Then why do it? Reconciliation is about mending the blockages in our connection to God. We do that by making amends where we can and asking God for forgiveness, in the process forgiving ourselves. Guilt is useful sometimes, but it becomes toxic quickly, and toxic guilt only serves to distance ourselves from God’s grace when we let it overtake us.”

“Are you sure this is a Catholic church? Not an AA meeting?” Louis winces reflexively, imagining the look on his mother’s face if she heard him talking to a priest like this.

There’s no reproach in Father Paul’s tone, though. In fact, he laughs, throaty and warm. “Fairly. Otherwise there’s been a serious clerical error in my being placed here.”

“Sorry. Just like, not used to being told not to feel guilty. Wasn’t expecting it.”

“Well,” Father Paul says. “Glad I could surprise you. But back to the point: what can you do to heal your relationship with your sisters? Lottie and…”

“Fizzy,” Louis fills in. “And Daisy and Phoebe, but I haven’t been back in touch with them, yet. I don’t think they remember me. They were just babies.”

“Alright. Now, tell me, have you explained to Lottie your reasons for not contacting her all these years?”

Louis flushes. “Um. Sort of.”

“What do you mean, _sort of_?”

“I told her I thought they were better off without me. Which was true, I mean, it is true. I thought that. Still kind of think it.” He chews on his thumb some more.

“Did you tell her your father didn’t allow you?”

He thinks he’d mentioned it. “Vaguely.”

“Did you give her enough information that she could understand the difficulty of your situation?”

Louis frowns. “Um. No. Maybe? What do you mean?” His back really does kill, a sharp ache in his lower spine. He shifts, trying to get it to go away.

“Did you tell her your father mistreated you?”

Louis whips his head up and tries to squint through the grating, but he can’t make anything out. “What? How do you—” How is everyone just guessing? Is it that obvious? Is there something about him that just announces it to everyone he meets, like it’s tattooed on his forehead? He feels sick.

“I have a sense for these things,” Father Paul says. “They’re much more common than they should be.”

Louis thinks about asking if he’s psychic, but that’s definitely crossing a line. “Um. Okay. Uh, no, I haven’t…she doesn’t know about that stuff.”

“So she’s holding onto anger about a situation she doesn’t have the information to judge accurately.”

Louis speaks around his thumb, which is bleeding steadily now, and tears more skin away. “I had years after he died to see them, though—”

Father Paul interrupts him. “Then that’s what you ask forgiveness for. You can’t change it now, but you can give her the information she needs to understand your choices, and you can be there for her now. That’s your penance. Understood?”

“Yes, Father.” Louis’ head is spinning.

“Now you say, _I am sorry for these and all of my sins._ ”

“I am sorry for these and all of my sins,” Louis repeats. _All the thousands of others._

“Do you remember the Act of Contrition?”

“Not really,” he admits.

“That’s fine. Repeat after me, then: God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell; but most of all because they offend you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to confess my sins, do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.” He pauses every couple of lines to allow Louis to echo the words back to him, and they’re comforting; the ritual is old and mostly forgotten but familiar, and when Louis says the _Amen_ he finds himself feeling just a little lighter. A drop of blood beads next to his thumbnail and he watches it swell, tremble, and fall, wondering _is it purified yet?_ No, he remembers that he has to be absolved, first; his blood is still tainted.

“Good,” Father Paul says. “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.” Louis is silent, and Father Paul drops his voice to a whisper. “This is where you say _His mercy endures forever._ ”

“His mercy endures forever.” His thumb is still bleeding. It doesn’t look any different. Louis’ grateful for Niall’s over-preparation, suddenly, doubtful that he could’ve really purified himself in a several-minute conversation with a priest that felt more like what he imagines a therapy session to be like than anything else. The Father hadn’t even chastised him, really; how could his blood be pure? Louis hadn’t even begun to make a dent in his sin, his guilt—

Father Paul interrupts his thoughts. “Thanks be to God. Go in peace.”

“Wait,” Louis says, suddenly panicked. “I’m—how can I be done? There’s so much more.”

“God knows everything in your heart,” Father Paul says. “You don’t need to tell me every sin you’ve ever committed in order to be absolved. God’s mercy isn’t transactional. You’re forgiven, Louis, for all of it, and your blood is purified.” Louis makes a kind of choking noise, and Father Paul chuckles. “Niall called me. He’s a good man, and he cares about you very deeply. You might consider talking to him about some of this.”

Louis stays in the confessional for several minutes after he hears Father Paul open the door and walk out, his steps echoing down the nave. He’s grateful not to have to look him in the eye, for the time to collect himself and will back the stinging moisture threatening to spill past his eyelids. When he gets back to his car, he ties a strap around his upper arm, feels around for his vein, and manages to draw eight vials of blood in one sitting, only feeling a little faint once he’s done, which he can chalk up to the blood loss.

He packs the vials into a locked case he normally uses for cash and hides it under the main weapons compartment in the trunk, and then he goes back to the motel and tells Harry he couldn’t find an open laundromat and that they’d just have to stink until they got to Niall’s, to which Harry had simply nodded his head and gone back to reading his book, which Louis never managed to get enough of a look at to identify it and which was entirely unmarked on both worn cloth covers. One lucky peek had revealed that at least part was written in some sort of Cyrillic script, but Harry had snapped it shut before Louis could get a decent look.

Louis’ prepared for bed, tonight: he bought four little bottles of Jack Daniels at a mini-mart while Harry used the bathroom, and he downs them one after another, wincing at the chemical taste, but they do the trick, and he’s asleep before Harry.

Harry’s already awake when he gets up, around five hours later, and just nods when Louis says to get his stuff together. They hit the road just after sunrise.

*

When, late that night, the Camaro finally pulls into Niall’s driveway and Louis clambers out on stiff legs, Harry trailing behind him, and knocks on the door, Nick Grimshaw answers.

“Uh,” Louis says, mouth hanging open. Nick looks a little haggard, but better than he had when Louis had last seen him—although that’s not too difficult, and mostly accomplished by the lack of tubes and wires. His face is still gaunt—it had been thin to begin with—but there’s some color to it, and he gives Louis a wide smile that pulls at his cheeks and shows a little in his eyes.

“Hiya, Lewis,” he says, more gruffly and with less enthusiasm than he would have, before, but Louis can’t fault him. He just doesn’t understand why he’s here.

“What are you doing here?” Louis blurts out. He winces as soon as he hears himself.

Nick laughs, a little darkly. “So you’re still the same as ever,” he says. “Good to know. Hi...Harry, was it?”

“Hello,” Harry says, from behind Louis.

“Niall?” Louis shouts. “Is he here?” he asks Nick.

“’Course,” Nick says. “It’d be weird if he wasn’t, wouldn’t it?”

Niall’s panting and leaning heavily on his cane when he makes it to the door. He looks tired, too, but not unhappy. “Hey Tommo,” he says. “Hey, Harry. Nice t’see ya, c’mon in.”

Harry immediately excuses himself to shower, and Nick plants himself on the couch, like it’s his spot and he’s claimed it. Louis bristles; that’s _his_ spot, and he doesn’t like that Nick’s draped all over it. He also doesn’t like that Nick’s getting a rise out of him when Louis ought to feel bad for him and thus more inclined to be nice. Nick, though, apparently still brings out the worst in Louis.

He corners Niall in the kitchen. The oven’s on, and it’s a little too hot; Niall’s face has a light sheen of sweat. “What’s the deal?” Louis says, arms crossed.

“Nick’s staying here for a bit,” Niall says, clearly having expected the question and come up with a response. “He was couch-surfing after he got out of hospital, so I gave him a ring and said he ought to come up here if he wanted. Fresh air, and all. Thought a change of scenery might do him good.”

“And?”

“Think it has,” Niall reflects. “I assume you’ll be wanting the sofa. Is Harry okay in the other guest room? He seems a bit out of it.”

“I don’t know,” Louis says. “Nick’s in the first one, then?”

Niall’s cheeks pink. “Stasha, actually.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “She’s still here?”

“Of course.” Niall looks offended.

“She’s a missing child,” Louis says.

“No one knows she’s here,” Niall replies, “and she can stay as long as she needs, ’til we find her somewhere to go.”

“You could go to jail,” Louis argues. The words sound funny to his own ears; he’s never really been one to harangue his friends, or listen when they harangued him, about consequences.

Niall gives him a searching look. “You want me to just give her over to CPS?”

Louis squirms. “No,” he says. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Exactly,” Niall says. “’Til then, she’s staying here.”

“Nick, too,” Louis says. “What are you running, some kinda orphanage?”

There’s a slight tightening to Niall’s expression as he makes a circular motion with his hand, a _look around you_. “More or less,” he says. “You got an issue with that?”

“No,” Louis hurries. “Just—nothing.” He suddenly remembers how they got on this topic. “So where _is_ Nick sleeping, if he’s not in the other guest room?”

The color rises further in Niall’s cheeks, spreading down to his chest where the top of his shirt is unbuttoned and up to the brim of the stupid hat he’s wearing. Louis is reasonably sure he’s seen Nick wearing a similar one. Oh god. “He’s got a bad back,” Niall says, “and his ankle’s all messed up still, so he’s in mine.”

Louis blinks. “And you are?”

Niall squirms. “Also in mine.”

Louis is speechless for a few moments. “Oh my god.”

“What?”

“Oh my god, please tell me you’re not sleeping with Nick Grimshaw.”

“We sleep in the same bed, yes,” Niall says, tone light even as his flaming red face gives him away. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing,” Louis says, leaning back against the fridge for support. It buzzes slightly against his spine; he can’t decide if he likes the feeling or not. He glances at Harry out of the corner of his eye, in an armchair with another book Louis can’t see, across from Nick and near the window overlooking the front deck. “Um. Nothing, really. Just surprised.”

Niall follows his gaze. “You could both stay upstairs, or down here, if you want to keep an eye on him.”

“Maybe,” Louis says. There’s a seizing anxiety that comes up when he thinks about sleeping on a different floor from Harry, although he doesn’t know how to begin to separate all the reasons.

“You think he’d try anything?” Niall says, seriously. “You know I like him, but he’s not himself.”

“I don’t think so.” Louis shifts in his seat, stealing a glance at Harry out of the corner of his eye. “He’s not—he hasn’t been violent, or anything. Just checked out.”

“And?”

“What?”

“Sounded like you were going to add something else,” Niall says.

Louis sighs. “Just—he’s said some things, is all.”

“Okay,” Niall says. “Maybe best to keep an eye on him, then. If he tries anything on the kid I’m going Al Pacino on his arse.”

Louis lets out a sharp laugh. “Good to know.”

“And I hope it goes without saying, but if you two could keep it down this time, that’d be ace.”

Louis kicks him. “Shut up,” he hisses, looking up at Harry to see if he’s heard anything. He doesn’t appear to have, still buried in his book, and he’s been not-hearing Louis a lot over these past few days.

“Ow,” Niall complains, rubbing his shin. “Christ, that actually hurts. Bit sensitive, huh?”

Louis frowns. “It’s complicated,” he mutters. “Sorry.” He’d been—he doesn’t know quite how to name the combination of feelings that came up when Niall suggested he and Harry might sleep together, tonight, but there’s anger, definitely, and guilt, and something else indefinable, just a kind of wrongness that unsettles him, and then sort of makes him want to cry, thinking of the last time he and Harry shared the couch, and how they should be closer, if anything, now, but Harry’s so far away it’s like Louis can’t even see him sometimes.

Niall lowers his voice. He looks sympathetic. “It’s ready to go whenever,” he murmurs, leaning in closer to Louis. “All set up in the bunker. Did you manage to get any blood yourself?”

“Yeah.” Louis swallows. “In a lockbox in the trunk. I don’t know if it worked, though. The priest was pretty...lax.”

Niall laughs, sharp and loud. “Paul? Yeah, he’s a bit of a character. Did you like him?”

“I wouldn’t say like,” Louis hedges. “He was nice. Too nice, maybe.”

“Aye, he’s pretty progressive. What d’you mean you don’t know if it worked, though?”

“I didn’t confess all my sins, or whatever. And the penance was weird.”

“Weird how?”

“No Hail Mary’s,” Louis says. “And he just like...told me to, um, tell Lottie some stuff.”

“Ah,” Niall says. “What were you expecting? Self-flagellation? A hair-shirt?”

“Shut up,” Louis grumbles. “I haven’t been to church in a long time.”

“Fair,” Niall says. “But if that’s all you’re worried about, the blood should be good to go. He absolved you of your sins?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s grand, then. I’ll take it down to the bunker. You keep an eye on your demon.” Niall claps him on the shoulder, and Louis works hard not to flinch. “You’re a good person, Lou,” he says, quietly. “You can do this. Have you told him?”

His throat is dry. “No.”

Niall frowns at him, clearly thinking, and then sighs. “Maybe best you don’t,” he concedes. “He’s—I dunno how possible it would be to get through to him, like this. Think I’ve heard him say three words since you got here. ’S almost like he’s been, like, rebooted, innit?”

Louis’ eyes feel hot. He blinks. “Yeah,” he says. “I dunno.” He hadn’t thought of it like that, but Niall’s right, and it makes sense with what Harry’s been saying. He killed Caroline, he went back to Hell, and he came out different, but Louis hadn’t realized it wasn’t just a change but a reversion. _This is what I am_ , he remembers Harry saying. _Before, I was trying to be something I’m not._

“Chin up,” Niall half-whispers, “you’ve got this,” and he stands with a scraping noise, kissing Louis on the hair before he limps away. Louis thinks he feels Harry’s gaze on him, but when he looks, Harry’s nose is buried in his book again.

*

“Hey, Stasha,” Louis says, leaning against the counter. “How’re you holding up?”

“Okay,” she says. She looks better than when he’d last seen her, but still too thin and haunted-looking. “Where’ve you been?”

“Sorry,” he starts.

She cuts him off. “Why you sayin’ sorry? I was just asking.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well. I was in Jersey, seeing some family.”

Her mouth visibly tightens. “Must be nice,” she says coolly.

 _Shit._ “The, um, the demon, Caroline, she was possessing my sister, so.”

Stasha looks at him, expression softening. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah.” Louis rubs the back of his neck, trying not to look too relieved. Stasha’s just lost her whole family, after all. “She’s dead. Caroline, that is, not my sister.”

She nods. “I’m glad.”

“Me too,” Louis says, rocking back and forth a little on his toes. “We’re gonna find you somewhere,” he blurts out. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Is it?” She sounds tired, vaguely acerbic. Louis doesn’t blame her. He’d hated the platitudes when he was in her position. Nothing was ever going to be okay. He can’t exactly tell her that he was wrong in believing that, either, because he wasn’t, not really. Things were better, in ways, and they were worse in others, and that wasn’t going to give her much hope for her future, which, if Louis had anything to say about it, was going to be significantly more _okay_ and _normal_ than his life had been.

“That’s what I thought,” she says.

“Shit,” Louis curses. “Sorry, just spaced out.”

“No, it’s okay,” she says. “You’re gonna _find me somewhere_.”

“We’re not trying to get rid of you,” Louis says. “Sorry. I just keep putting my foot in my mouth. You—we’ll figure it out, okay? All of us, is what I meant. We’re not trying to get rid of you.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” she mumbles.

“Hey,” Louis says, crouching down on the floor so he can look her in the eyes. “You’re incredible, none of this is your fault, and you’re going to survive this, okay? We’re not going to let anything else happen to you. I promise.”

Stasha looks away from him, and at first he figures she’s just uncomfortable, but she’s looking over his shoulder, and he turns around to see Harry hovering in the doorframe, expression blank and hair wet.

“Harry,” Louis says, “could you give us a minute?”

Nodding silently, Harry turns around and walks away.

“What’s wrong with him?” Stasha asks. “He wasn’t like that before, was he?”

Louis sighs. “I don’t know, exactly,” he says, “but he killed Caroline, and gave up a lot to do it, so.”

“Oh,” she says. “Can I say thank you?”

Louis winces. “Maybe give him a couple days,” he says. “I know he wanted to talk to you. When he’s feeling better, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees.

“What have you been doing?” Louis asks.

She shrugs. “Sleeping. Reading. Niall’s got a lot of books.” Louis follows her gaze out the window at the cars parked in front of the house, and he gets an idea.

“Do you know how to change a tire?”

“No,” she says.

They spend the afternoon in the yard, taking the tires on and off the Camaro. He opens up the hood and teaches her to check and change oil, and, after only a little hesitation, he gives her the keys and gives her her first driving lesson. He finds himself wishing he’d done this for Lottie, regretting that he hadn’t been there, but this is good, too. He can do this, now.

They go inside when it’s dark. Niall’s made Shepherd’s pie. Harry doesn’t eat, doesn’t even come into the kitchen and sit down with them. Louis’ weirdly glad for it; he doesn’t know what he’d do if Harry came out with something else he’d found in Louis’ brain while other people are here. Niall had pulled him aside while dishing food out and said that everything was ready, whenever he wanted to do the ritual, and Louis had said, “In the morning,” so that they could all sleep, although he knew he wouldn’t, and every time he glanced at Harry he felt so nauseous he had to close his eyes to calm the urge to throw up, so Harry self-excluding from dinner was good, and afterwards, Louis has a drink, and then another, and then another, and when he lies down on the couch to sleep, Harry’s nowhere to be seen, so Louis assumes he’s taken the spare room, and that’s just fine by him.

*

A thump from upstairs wakes him up with a start. He curses, rubbing his eyes and willing his heartbeat to slow down; he’d been having a nightmare, and although the details of it are murky, he remembers the same sharp, heart-rending fear he’d felt when Harry possessed him, a fear that pierced straight to the core of him and didn’t ebb away but grew the longer he felt it until it felt as though it was going to stop his heart. He blinks rapidly, trying to acclimate his eyes to the low light, running his hands over the fabric of Niall’s couch to remind him where he is. The room around him begins to come into soft focus. There’s a figure at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the rail in a way that can’t be comfortable, and Louis’ breath hitches.

There’s a long minute where all he can hear is the buzz of the refrigerator and the gentle rustling of the wind through the trees outside and the anxious jump of his own pulse, and he worries, irrationally, that Harry can hear him thinking about tomorrow, about the cure Louis still hasn’t told him about, telling himself _tomorrow_ or _later tonight_ or _in an hour_ or _the next time he pushes his hair out of his face_. The moments come, and they pass, and the twisting, writhing knot in Louis’ gut grows and becomes more vicious.

Then, Harry crosses the room with careful strides, the floorboards only creaking minutely under his feet. He comes to a halt at the end of the couch nearest Louis’ feet, and he stands there, hands clasped in front of him and head a little bowed, shadowing his face. Louis’ throat bobs. His mouth feels dry.

“Can I lie down with you?” Harry sounds almost childlike, meek and quiet, like he’s asking for permission for something he wants but expects his parents to say no to.

Louis can’t say no to him, though, not when he’s talking to him for the first time in days, and not when the request is so simple. “Of course,” he says, voice cracking. “C’mere.”

Harry fits himself between Louis and the back of the couch, facing away from him. After just a second of hesitation, Louis winds his arms around Harry’s middle and, when Harry doesn’t tense further, he tightens the embrace, locking his arms and draping himself over Harry’s back, between the outside and him. He feels crazy with the impulse to protect. He shouldn’t, maybe, with how cold and mean and sometimes scary Harry’s been since he came back, but Louis remembers the pure, unyielding, unending fear he’d felt when Harry possessed him, remembers that Harry put him to sleep before he felt or heard or saw more, and he remembers, all of a sudden, in a burst of clarity, a scene from the month he doesn’t remember.

He’d been standing at a bus station somewhere in Ohio—Columbus, maybe—and shivering so hard that his knees knocked against each other, and more than once he nearly fell over, his feet numb from the snow soaking through the soles of his worn-out boots. He needed to conserve gas, because his money was running out, and he’d found a bus pass on the sidewalk earlier, so he had taken it down to the library and spent the day there, until they closed at seven. The bus was twenty minutes late, now, and it had gotten dark, the temperature dropping along with the light.

He blew on his hands to warm them. A splashing noise made him startle and look around. A girl, not much older than him, with what looked like bright pink hair was standing a few feet away, looking indecisive. She had an OSU sweatshirt on under her coat and was clutching her bag tightly. “Hi,” she said, suddenly. “Um. Hang on, just a second.” She dug around in her purse for a second before pulling out a crumpled five dollar bill and holding it out to him. The wind blew it around a little, and he stared at it, frozen, with his mouth open. His fingers twitched.

“Happy New Year,” she said nervously, and he felt something in his chest spark and ignite, growing quickly out of control, blazing-hot and destructive.

“Fuck off,” he growled. “You see a fucking sign? You think I want your money, like I’m some kinda beggar?” He took a step toward her and she recoiled backwards, stoking the fire that was hissing and popping, now. “What, you think I’m gonna fucking hit you? Fuck you,” he yelled, watching as she turned on her heel and scurried back down the street, slipping in the fresh snow on the pavement that hadn’t been salted yet. He yelled more expletives, until his voice was hoarse and taking in gulps of freezing air stung badly enough to make his eyes wet.

“Louis?”

He snaps back to Niall’s living room, Harry’s persistent warmth all along his front, making him sweat a little at his temples and the back of his neck. “Hey,” he says.

Harry makes a low, pained noise in his throat, and Louis can’t stop himself from kissing the wing of his shoulder, and then doing it again. Harry doesn’t push into it, but he doesn’t pull away, either, so Louis gets bold and kisses the bare skin on the back of his neck, the fine curly hairs at the nape that he can’t scrape into his bun tickling Louis’ nose.

He almost falls off the couch with the suddenness of Harry twisting in his arms so they’re facing each other for just a breath before Harry grips his jaw and kisses him, hungry and punishing. Louis lets it happen. Harry doesn’t let him move an inch, just holds him where he wants him and plunders Louis’ mouth, like he’s punishing him for something—or else Louis is just projecting his guilt, knowing what he’s going to do in the morning and knowing that he ought to have told Harry by now.

It feels natural, good, like penance, to follow the push of Harry’s hands on his shoulders down his body to where he’s warm and stiff under his boxers, to let his face be pressed into it and inhale, mouthing over the bulge with his breathing restricted just a little bit, just enough to get his heart thumping that much faster.

He looks up at Harry’s face, and freezes. His eyes are wide open but empty, staring at the ceiling so blankly it chills Louis to his core—it’s the same look, he realizes, that Harry wore when he tried to blow Louis in a gas station bathroom, almost like he was on autopilot, his body performing the steps but his mind somewhere else entirely. Louis braces his arms on either side of Harry’s thighs and pushes himself up to get a better look. Harry whines, but he doesn’t move a muscle, and the blank look is even worse up close.

“Fuck,” Louis mutters. “Harry?” Nothing. Louis doesn’t know what to do. Tentatively, he reaches up to brush a lock of hair out of Harry’s face, and has the wind knocked out of him when Harry grips his wrist so tightly he has to bite his lip not to make a sound. It’s his bad wrist, the one he broke on that vampire hunt and which had never healed properly, and it feels like Harry’s trying to split it along the same fracture. He wonders if Harry saw that memory, and the thought, along with the pain, brings humiliating tears to his eyes.

“Harry,” he says again, voice shaking, and he exhales hard with relief when his wrist is released, and he moves immediately off the couch, only stumbling slightly and cradling his wrist to his chest out of instinct. It’s not broken, but it’ll bruise something fierce, and it throbs as he stares at Harry, whose blank expression has turned confused and a little fearful, his brow pinched together and his pupils blown. Louis should feel afraid of him. He does, on some level. Mostly, he just feels afraid for him.

It’s nothing on how he feels when there’s a shift in Harry’s expression, like something just slid into place, and the blank look returns as he says, dully, “How do you want me?”

“What?”

Harry’s not making eye contact, staring past Louis. “On my hands and knees, or stomach, or what?”

It’s the most Harry’s spoken since he got back into his body, and Louis hates it. “ _No_ ,” he whisper-shouts. “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?”

Harry’s face flickers back to scared momentarily. Louis feels a pang of fear in sympathy. “You don’t want me?” Harry says, quietly.

 _Not like this_ , Louis thinks. _Not when I can’t tell if you’re even there._ “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, instead.

“You won’t,” Harry promises, audibly hollow. “You can’t.”

 _I don’t feel things_ , Louis remembers. _Not the way humans do._ His chest tightens with the thought, phantom fear and hurt stalking around the edges of his consciousness. He remembers, more than once—more times than he can count, really, and there must be some he doesn’t remember, from that first month—waking up in a stranger’s bed with an ache low in his back and no recollection of how it got there, his memory cutting out somewhere around his sixth drink and the accompanying despair at the thought of sleeping in the car again, winking at whoever was close by and looking at him. He hopes Harry didn’t see any of that.

Wordlessly, Louis turns on his heel and walks on shaky legs to the kitchen, where he pours himself a Scotch, neat, and drains it in two long sips before refilling the glass and clutching it, palms sweating, as he leans against the doorframe and looks at Harry’s small form—god, how had he not noticed how _small_ Harry really was, despite his height advantage—still on the couch exactly as Louis left him, staring at the ceiling like he’s waiting for Louis to come back and have his way with him. The Scotch threatens to come back up with that thought. _Such a good boy_ , he remembers. _Were you good for him, Harry?_ He knocks back the last of his second drink and rolls the glass around in his hands.

He makes his decision, then, watching the way Harry holds himself perfectly still. Or rather, he admits to himself that he can’t accept that Harry might say no, that Harry might run, that Harry might—would, most likely—run into someone who wouldn’t care that he wasn’t all there, and Louis would never get him back. A part of him insists that Louis is no better if he takes this decision away from Harry, but isn’t it worse to know that Harry’s suffering—he can’t get the night terror out of his head, nor the plunge into pure fear he’d felt when he peeked into Harry’s consciousness—and do nothing, letting god knows what happen to him? Trusting him to make his own decisions when he's demonstratively self-destructive, checked-out at absolute best? He thinks that must be worse. It has to be.

He pads as quietly as he can across the cold hardwood and scratchy rug and to the stairs, taking them two at a time. He locks the guest room door shut behind him and sits on the bed for a long while. He doesn’t sleep.

*

It doesn’t seem like Harry’s slept, either. Louis glances at him, still on the couch, fully dressed, as he passes through the living room to the kitchen, where Nick and Niall are standing—very close to each other, although Louis’ too exhausted and on-edge to think about it—and Stasha’s sitting at the table, half a piece of toast on a checkered plate in front of her.

“You look like shit,” Nick tells him.

“Yeah.” Louis hasn’t seen himself, but he’s sure Nick’s right. “Didn’t sleep.”

“What’s up with Harry?” Niall asks, low and urgent. “I tried talking to him and he just looked past me like I wasn’t there.”

“I don’t know,” Louis says miserably. That’s not entirely true—he has the pieces, he just can’t bring himself to deal with putting them all in their right places, not right now. “He tried to get me to, um, have sex with him. Last night.”

“Did you?” Nick says.

“ _No._ ” Louis doesn’t mean to snarl, but he does. “He’s fucking—he’s not himself.”

Nick looks at him skeptically. “And you know who _himself_ is?”

“Hey,” Niall cuts in. “I’m with Lou on this one. That’s not the same person who left here a week ago.”

“Demon,” Nick mutters.

Louis stiffens, but ignores him. “Ready to go?” he asks Niall, who nods, elbowing Nick.

“Ow! Fine.” He looks at Louis, face stripped of any of its usual mirth. “For the record, I think it’s fucked up that you’re doing this without telling him, even if he is a demon. But yeah. Ready.”

Louis wants to argue, snap _shut the fuck up, what do you know?_ But Nick’s only saying what Louis—at least part of him—thinks, so he just swallows and gives a jerky nod.

“We’ll head down,” Niall says. He turns to Stasha. “Hey, kiddo, you think you can keep an eye on the pot roast for me?”

“Sure,” she says, not looking up from the book she’s got open on the table. Louis feels himself smile.

Nick opens the door and steps out onto the deck; Niall pauses, putting a hand on Louis’ shoulder and grimacing at him in a way Louis is sure is supposed to be comforting, but which falls a little flat. “It’ll work,” Niall murmurs. “And he deserves a second chance, doesn’t he?”

Louis blinks rapidly. _Harry wants to be human_ , he thinks. _He said so. Not in as many words, but he said it._ “Yeah,” he says, voice a little hoarse. He clears his throat. “Thanks.”

Niall squeezes his shoulder once more before following Nick out the door. He’s not limping too badly, which brightens Louis’ mood the tiniest bit, enough for him to take a deep breath and go back into the living room, stand in front of Harry, and say, “Could I get your help with something?”

Harry nods.

“Great,” Louis says. “Follow me.” Harry nods and stands up, but Louis hates silence, so he recites the lie he’d practiced. “Niall’s updating the spells on the bunker—” A half-truth; Niall had, in fact, removed the wards that would keep Harry out entirely and replaced them with spells that contained demons rather than repelling them. “—and he needs you to come help him test some of them.” He waits with bated breath as Harry seems to consider this—at least he hopes he’s considering, can’t really tell from the blank stare he gets—and then exhales when Harry nods again and motions for Louis to lead.

Harry trails a few steps behind him out the front door, down the stairs to the deck and under it, hunched over to reach the trapdoor, which Louis opens, and, hoping, heart thumping, he climbs down the ladder first, allowing himself a small moment of relief when he sees Harry’s long legs descending after him.

“Over here,” he calls, walking five paces and surveying the setup; it’s just as he’d discussed with Niall, a chair in the center of the space, bolted to the floor, the bunk beds pushed to the side to make room. Louis hears the door shut behind Harry, and the soft noise of him dropping to the concrete floor, followed by the shuffle of his steps. He comes to stand near Louis, looking around with a little furrow to his brow. He opens his mouth.

Louis’ heart leaps into his throat. “Now,” he says, and Nick and Niall, emerging from the shadowed area created by the bunk beds, grab each of Harry’s shoulders, twisting his arms behind his back and forcing him into the chair, latching the iron cuffs on the arms of the chair over his wrists, and the matching ones on the legs over his ankles, the noises violent; the whole thing looks and sounds too much like a medieval torture device.

Louis hates it, hates the look of utter betrayal in Harry’s eyes as he looks at him, hates that it’s the most expressive he’s seen Harry since he got back, and he wants to call a halt to this whole thing, but it’s too late, now, and Louis tries as hard as he can to remember the reasons he’d made this choice. He’d known it would be awful, but the reality of it is something else entirely; he feels viscerally, violently ill, like he’s going to start coughing up his own organs.

“What the fuck,” Harry spits. “What are you doing?” He struggles against the bindings, but they hold strong. Briefly, Louis makes eye contact with Niall, who nods, and gestures at the little table set up next to the wall with the lock box from Louis’ car, a clock, and what Louis assumes must be the purified blood Niall had made, in an orange juice bottle with a rosary draped around it. Louis would laugh if he weren’t on the verge of crying.

“Sorry,” he says, picking up the first of the eight syringes filled with dark blood. His hands shake a little, and he feels like he’s floating a few inches above his body as he walks over to where Harry’s struggling against the cuffs, kneeling down to feel for the vein in the inside of Harry’s elbow and, with a deep breath, slide the needle home.

He presses the plunger. Harry screams.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ftr, what Louis does here is fucked up, even though he has reasons and not a whole lot of good choices. Hopefully that comes across as intended and this doesn't read as an endorsement of his logic/course of action, which is what he /would/ do and not what I think he /should/. Anyway. Hope you enjoyed, sorry I keep ramping up the misery, I promise resolution and healing are on their way.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand...it's here! Thank you for bearing with me; life happens and this chapter was a little bit of a monster to write, so that's where the delay came from. Also going to blame part on Mercury being retrograde.
> 
> I know I say it every chapter, and I know every time I say it I say that I especially mean it that time, but this time I really do mean it more than ever: an endless, eternal thank you to my incredible friend and editor/beta Kate, without whom I would probably have abandoned this story a long time ago. It truly is thanks to her encouragement, patience, critical eye, kindness, and support that this story is what it is. Thanks for pushing me when I needed it. 
> 
> Also, thanks to anyone who has stuck with this! I'm truly astonished at the response my little story has gotten, and so grateful to those of you who have commented on every chapter (you know who you are!) and those who haven't. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: basically everything up to this point, but especially past abuse, trauma, homophobia (one use of the f-word), violence, and death. As always, I'm happy to provide more detail on any of these; if I missed something, I apologize.

The scream seems to go on for hours, stretching and cracking in places, unnaturally loud and persistent, until, suddenly, it cuts off, and Harry’s head drops forward, his shoulders heaving with the force of his breaths. Louis’ ears ring in the quiet; it takes him a few moments to find his own voice, gone hysterical when he hears it. “Harry,” he calls, “Haz, can you hear me?” Harry doesn’t respond, and Louis turns to Niall. “Is this—is something wrong?”

“Dunno,” Niall says, voice short and clipped, face serious and slightly grey in the harsh light down here. “Never done it, have I?”

Louis’ gut wrenches. “Where the Hell did you even get it from?” How could he not have thoroughly vetted this ritual himself? He trusts Niall, but it seems foolish in retrospect not to have interrogated this kind of risky spellwork.

“A friend,” Niall says.

“Who?” Louis’ half-shouting now. Harry’s still slumped over and breathing heavily, every now and then making little noises like he’s in pain. Louis’ afraid to move closer; the syringe still dangles from his lax grip, and he gets the urge to throw it across the room.

Niall waits until Louis’ looking at Harry again to say, quietly, “Zayn.”

It’s a good thing, too, because Louis does throw the syringe, and it bounces off the opposite wall but doesn’t make any sort of satisfying noise: no crash, no shatter, goddamn medical plastic. “You got it from Zayn? And you’re just now telling me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Niall says. “Zayn’s trustworthy.”

“Yeah,” Nick starts, and Louis turns on his heel, nearly overbalancing.

“You,” he says, pointing at Nick, “shut the fuck up.”

Nick crosses his arms. “I think you’ll find—”

“Nick,” Niall says, laying a hand on his arm. Louis twitches. “Tommo and I have got this. You go on up and keep an eye on things, how about?”

“Fine,” Nick mutters, and Louis hears him climb the ladder and open the trapdoor, wincing involuntarily when it slams shut with a deadly-sounding clang.

“Louis,” Niall starts, “listen—”

“Since when are you even talking to Zayn?” Louis interrupts. “What the fuck, Niall?”

Niall puts his hands up. “Not long. Not really until you left last week, actually, it was a bit mad, actually—”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“You were a bit preoccupied,” Niall says. “And you would’ve gotten your arse in a twist. Just like you’re doing now. It doesn’t matter, okay? Zayn’s trustworthy.”

“Trustworthy?” Louis practically shrieks it, incredulous. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” He’s struck with the sudden and disturbing urge to throttle Niall, put his hands around his throat and squeeze until his face goes purple. He shakes his head, trying to dispel it. Did that come from him? He’s never thought anything violent about Niall, not really.

Niall’s hair sticks straight up where he’s run his hand through it, and his face is slowly turning red. “No—shite, I mean, I don’t trust him not to be an arse, I’m not sayin’ everything’s okay, just that he’s good on this kind of thing.”

Zayn is good at this kind of thing—it’s one of the reasons he’d made a good partner—but he left. And yet here he is, back in Louis’ life without being there, somewhere behind the curtain pulling strings Louis didn’t know existed. He yanks at his hair, trying to steady himself.

“Mate,” Niall says slowly, “maybe it’s best if you don’t hang ‘round down here. There’s no way for him to get out, you only have to give ‘im a shot every hour.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Louis snaps. Harry’s limp now; Louis checks his pulse and finds it a little fast but strong, which is a relief.

Niall grimaces. “It’s—he’s going to be in a lot of pain, and Zayn said it’s quite difficult to be around.”

Louis clenches his jaw. “I can handle it.” He manages not to say I don’t give a single solitary fuck what Zayn says.

“Can you?” Niall says. “Honest question, can you? ‘Cos it might get pretty brutal.”

Louis hesitates; he doesn’t want to see Harry in pain, and he especially doesn’t want to see him in pain that Louis inflicted, but what does it say about him if he runs away from what Harry’s going through? It makes him selfish, is what it does. He thinks back to a few nights ago, the night terror that had Harry practically convulsing, and his urge to go out and slam the door behind him until it stopped. He hadn’t given in then; he can’t give in now.

“I’m not leaving,” he says. The floaty feeling begins to abate just slightly; his feet begin to feel heavy, and his heartbeat slows enough that he notices. “You can go, if you want.”

Niall looks at him strangely. “I don’t want to,” he says. “Just thought you might.”

“You really don’t have to stay,” Louis says. He’s not sure why he’s saying it. He wants Niall here, not only in case something goes wrong. That feels odd to admit to himself, but also weirdly like some tiny piece of weight has lifted off his shoulders. He’ll think about it later. “I have to wait an hour between each of these, right?”

“Yeah,” Niall says. “I dunno exactly why, but I think more would be too much for the body—I mean, um, Harry—to handle.”

Louis swallows. “Okay. Long day. Pull up a chair, then.”

*

Harry stirs around three quarters of an hour later; Louis’ been trying not to glance at the clock too much, but it’s futile, and each time the minute hand has only ticked one or two notches clockwise. He’s been making clipped, disjointed conversation with Niall (or Niall’s been making it with him, whichever), who says it’s probably a good sign that Harry’s so quiet, but Louis’ not sure.

“You ready for the next one?” Niall says, when the clock shows 9:50. The syringes are laid out, evenly spaced, on a little metal table in the corner. There are seven left: a long ways to go.

“Yeah,” Louis says. He smiles and knows it’s more of a grimace than anything else. “Of course.”

Just like that, as if on cue, Harry’s head lolls back and forth before rolling back and exposing his ashen face to the light. His eyes are still closed, mouth slack, and then something shifts, and his brow pinches, mouth screwing up into a twisted grimace accompanied by a strangled kind of whine that sounds like it ought to come from a wounded animal.

“Harry?” Louis’ feet move him across the floor of their own accord, until he’s just inches away, crouching at eye level. “Hey, Harry, are you okay?”

Harry’s mouth twitches, and his expression smoothes minutely, but up close like this Louis can see the tiny shakes traveling through him, the kind of perpetual motion that comes with severe, inescapable pain.

“Depends how you define ‘okay’,” Harry rasps, voice rough like it’s been chained to a rear bumper and dragged back and forth up a gravel road a few dozen times. “Have you ever had your blood literally boil inside of you?”

Louis swallows. “I’m sorry,” he offers. “I know it’s uncomfortable, but—”

“You really don’t,” Harry says, with audible effort. He tugs at the bindings, testing them. “What’s all this about, then?”

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, again. It feels hopelessly inadequate.

“An explanation would be nice.” Harry’s face keeps twisting and then smoothing in intervals, like the pain’s coming in waves. Louis’ heart hurts for him.

“Well, uh.” Louis scratches the back of his neck. “It’s a…cure.”

“Wasn’t aware I was ill.”

“For…being a demon,” Louis finishes.

“Oh.” Harry’s quiet, in the bad way. “That, um...that makes sense, then, why you didn’t...I didn’t know that was possible.”

“’s a bit experimental,” Niall cuts in. “Zayn swears up and down it works, though.”

“Zayn?” Harry repeats, and meets Louis’ gaze, wide and red. “Is that—”

“My old partner, yes,” Louis says, shifting his weight back and forth. “He’s trustworthy,” he finds himself saying.

“You don’t think so,” Harry says, blankly.

Louis freezes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, trying for calm. “I trust Zayn’s spellwork.” There, that’s actually true. Can Harry tell if he’s lying or something? Louis hadn’t thought so, and he’s freaking out a little at the implications.

“It’s true,” Niall continues. “He’s dead good with this stuff, he wouldn’t give it to me otherwise. He’s like…weirdly protective about his stuff when he’s not happy with it.”

Louis nods. It’s true. He feels a little glimmer of fondness for Zayn, actually, and his control freak tendencies about witchcraft, which drove Louis up the wall, considering he’d been making hex bags for nearly a decade before Zayn came along and he knew how to fucking do it. “He was,” he says. “Shit, er, he is.”

“You told him he was dead to you,” Harry says, neutral and flat like he’s commenting on the weather. Actually, Harry usually comments on the weather with much more enthusiasm, the past week excluded.

“I—” Louis feels himself choke and stutter. “What—um—what are you…”

“I saw it,” Harry says, “when I possessed you.”

“Alright!” Niall half-shouts. “You two clearly need to have a chat. I’m going to go upstairs and check Nick hasn’t burned the house down.” He laughs nervously. “Sorry. Bad joke. I’m off.” And with that, he’s gone, bizarrely fast for someone who frequently has so much difficulty walking.

“Dammit,” Louis curses, watching Niall climb the ladder. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

Harry’s looking at him curiously, still with that blankness but…something else.

“How do you know that?” Louis demands. He can’t have—God, Harry was poking around his head, he wants to puke. “I trusted you not to look through my thoughts,” he says, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. “What the fuck, Harry?”

Harry winces, which is more reaction than Louis’ gotten from him in a while. “Could you please untie me?” he says. “This isn’t necessary. I’m not going to do anything.”

Louis hesitates; he’d been planning for the worst, for Harry to be flailing and snarling and trying to kill him, not this pained, defeated quiet, but the rational, drilled-in voice in his head says that this could be a trick, that Harry still has his superhuman strength and could snap Louis’ neck without breaking a sweat. He shakes his head, though; this is _Harry_ , his Harry, and he wouldn’t, and the increasingly loud part of Louis is judging him for even thinking that. Sure, Harry’s been acting strange, but he’s not violent, at least not towards anyone but himself. He doesn’t need to be chained up like an animal.

As quickly as he can manage, Louis finds the key and drops to his knees on the cold concrete, unlocking the cuffs one by one. His heart rate accelerates when he releases the last one, but Harry doesn’t spring up and lunge for his throat, he just rubs at his pink, newly freed wrist.

“There’s a first-aid kit down here,” Louis says. “I can bandage that.”

“I’m fine,” Harry says, not making eye contact. He’s rubbing his wrist so hard it must hurt, can’t be soothing, and without thinking Louis reaches out to stop him. It surprises him when Harry flinches away, but it shouldn’t.

“Sorry,” Louis says. “Just looked like you were hurting yourself.”

Harry’s silent for a while. “I didn’t look on purpose,” he eventually says, mouth drawn tight. “In your head, I mean.”

“Oh.” Louis blinks. “Okay.” He wasn’t expecting that, and doesn’t know what to do with it, or really what it means.

“I just kept seeing things, without looking for them.”

“Okay,” Louis says, for lack of anything else. This is not going how he expected. “Um. How are you doing?”

“Alright,” Harry says. “How long does this take?”

“Eight hours,” Louis says. He takes a deep breath; he needs to give Harry the option. He absolutely does, and he should have before doing any of this. “If you don’t want to—”

“I want to,” Harry cuts him off. “I don’t…I don’t want to be like this, I’m just. Scared.” His voice goes tiny towards the end, his shoulders caving in and head bowing further, and Louis aches to just hold him, but he doesn’t know if that would make things worse.

He coughs. “Um. Could I…would it be okay if I gave you a hug?”

Harry looks up, and up close Louis can really see how pale he is, how tired he looks, the minute twitches of the muscles in his face that are the only sign he’s showing that he’s hurting. Louis hates him hurting, and hates himself for doing it, but…Harry wants to be human. The relief he feels at knowing that is so powerful he nearly topples over, and it redoubles when Harry gives a tiny nod. He’s shaking when Louis wraps his arms around his shoulders and rubs his back, making nonsense sounds to try to soothe him. It feels like instinct, even though he really hasn’t done this in…god, years, it has to be, since Lottie skinned her knee or someone at school was mean to her and he became the big brother who would stick a band-aid on it (or get their mom to) or yell at whoever made his little sister cry.

Harry doesn’t relax into the hug, but he doesn’t pull away, either.

“Y’wanna move to the bed?” Louis asks out of impulse. “Or cot, I guess.”Harry freezes in his grip, going rigid as a board. _Oh_. Louis gets it a second too late, and his heart plummets down to the floor. “God, no, Jesus Christ, Harry, that wasn’t me coming on to you, I’m not—” _Why would you think that_ , he wants to ask, but he doesn’t want to hear the answer, not really. And he doesn’t want to make Harry say what he thinks he’d say.

“Oh,” Harry murmurs. “Um, sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Louis says, patting his back a little awkwardly. He’s sure Harry can feel the racing of his pulse and has the horrible thought that Harry might still read that the wrong way. “If you don’t want to, that’s okay. I just figured it would be more comfortable.”

“Okay,” Harry says. “That would be…good, I think.”

Louis’ calves are starting to cramp stooping to hug Harry in this position, and his knees pop and protest when he straightens up with a small groan. He sends up a silent apology to Niall as he scratches away the outer edge of the Devil’s trap with his pocket knife. Standing up looks difficult for Harry, and Louis rushes over to offer himself as support, but Harry ignores him, which Louis doesn’t like, but he realizes that Harry must feel helpless right now, so he lets him shuffle his way over to the cot in the corner without assistance, curling up on it with his knees up towards his chest.

Louis isn’t sure where to place himself. He glances at the clock; he has to give Harry the next injection in five minutes, and he swallows, rocking on his heels.

“What?” Harry says.

“Um. It’s, uh, it’s been an hour, so…”

“Oh,” Harry says. “One every hour, then?”

“Yeah.” Louis swallows, thinking of how Harry had screamed at the first.

“Okay,” Harry says. “Can I stay here?”

“Yeah, no problem.” Louis doesn’t actually know, but there’s nothing in the instructions Niall gave him that say the demon in question can’t be lying down. “I’ll just…go get it ready.”

“What is it?” Harry asks, curling a little more into himself.

Louis’ face flames. “Uh, blood. Purified blood.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.” Louis picks up the second syringe and rips open the packaging, twists the cap off, and plunges the needle into the accompanying dark-red vial, tapping it twice for air bubbles. His medical instincts haven’t abandoned him, thank god.

When he’d pictured doing this—when he couldn’t make himself stop imagining—it had been with huge, fearsome-looking syringes, like something out of a 19th century medical textbook, with a needle as thick as a toothpick, but they’re just the little plastic kind that barely weighs anything even when filled. They almost don’t seem appropriate, like they ought to be more macabre.

“Oh,” Harry says, the fearful note in his voice stronger. “Um…are you…uh, you’re, um, you’re negative, right?”

It takes Louis a second, standing there dumbly with a syringe full of his own blood. “Oh, you mean am I HIV-negative? Yeah, um. Yeah, I get tested pretty often, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t risk that.” He’s actually having trouble remembering the last time, but he knows Liam bugged him about it not too long ago, but he does, regularly, ever since he came out of those lost months and sat, jittering, at the free clinic for several hours, thinking he might die right there of anxiety. He uses protection and gets tested, not regularly, but often, now. Although—

“Are you?” he blurts out, panic welling up unbidden. “I mean, we—”

“Yes,” Harry says.

“Oh. Okay.” Louis’ heart calms down. He looks at the clock—they’ve got a couple minutes. “Shit, we should’ve talked about that before we, y’know…” He waves his free hand in a vague circle that doesn’t at all communicate _fucked raw_ **_._ ** _“_ Anyway, so. We’re good.” He crosses back over to awkwardly kneel on the floor beside Harry on the cot. “Could I have one of your arms, please?”

Harry extends the right one, mostly blank with just the _Things I Can_ and the marks he’s gained since meeting Louis, pink scar tissue and blown-out bluish ink marring the smooth skin. Mechanically, Louis feels for a vein, and when he finds it, he takes a deep breath. “Okay. Deep breath in,” he instructs Harry, who obeys. “Now exhale.” He slides the needle in quick and smooth, moving with him when Harry flinches, hissing. Louis hisses in sympathy; closer and calmer like this, he can _see_ how the blood moves through the vein, making it stand up and go a garish red and then black, fading out as it spreads away from the— _god_ , the black, charred-looking puncture wound where the needle went in, with an even worse-looking one from the first shot. “You’re okay,” he says, “keep breathing, c’mon.” He suddenly notices that Harry’s got his shoulder in a punishing grip that is definitely leaving bruises, could probably break bones if it were a little tighter. It _hurts_ , god, it’s awful, but he breathes harshly through it and just hopes Harry won’t break his shoulder if he lets him have this, hurt Louis back. He owes Harry that.

Eventually, Harry’s grip slackens, his breaths getting slower and deeper, his eyes flickering open where they’d been pinched shut. It’s totally inappropriate and horrible of Louis to notice the sharpness of his jaw where it’s clenched and remember the tight set of Harry’s face as he fucked Louis within an inch of his life, and he pushes the thought away as soon as he has it, but it leaves him a little tingly. He walks on shaky legs over to the sharps disposal—shit, he needs to find the one he threw—and leans against the table for a moment, closing his eyes and locking his elbows.

A little sound from behind him startles him out of the slight daze, and he turns back to Harry to see big red eyes staring back at him. “You okay?” Harry asks, and Louis could laugh at the irony, except then he might cry, so he just makes a weird snorting noise and nods.

“Are you?” he asks. “That’s stupid, sorry, just…”

“‘m alright,” Harry says. “Just. Hurts.”

Louis bites his lip. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says miserably. “Hot. But too cold as well.”

“Can I…” _Fuck it_ , Louis decides, and gets bold. “Could I hold you?”

“Um,” Harry says. “Yeah, uh, if you wouldn’t…if you wouldn’t mind, that might help. I don’t know.” So Louis climbs gingerly onto the cot next to him—there’s barely room for one person, let alone two, and there’s no choice but to touch—and waits for Harry to make the next move, which is just a minute curl into Louis. His skin feels cold and clammy where it’s touching Louis’, his heartbeat uneven and weak.

“I’m sorry,” Louis repeats, into Harry’s shivering shoulder. “I really should’ve told you.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. The vibrations of his speech are weirdly soothing, even though he’s still talking with that odd blank tone, like he’s not fully here. “Why didn’t you?”

Louis hesitates, sighing and closing his eyes to listen to Harry’s shallow breaths for a moment while he figures out how to answer. “I…you got back and you were different, and I got scared. And then you, um.”

“What?”

“Last night,” Louis says, swallowing, “you, um…”

“What did I do?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No,” Harry says, very quietly. “No, I don’t.”

Oh. That does confirm what Louis had been afraid of. It doesn’t feel vindicating, just sad. “You were just acting weird,” he settles on, hoping Harry doesn’t ask for more explanation. “It seemed like you weren’t all there.”

Harry seems to accept that answer, or else he picks up on the implication. He doesn’t say anything for a while. “That makes sense,” he murmurs, eventually. “I just…”

“What?” Louis prompts.

“Nothing,” Harry says, all emotion bleached from his tone. “I’m going to sleep.”

Louis swallows. “Okay,” he says. “Should I stay?”

“If you want to.” So he does.

*

Any hopes Louis had of this being relatively painless fly out the window in the sixth hour. Up until that point, it’s been routine; he gives Harry the injection, leaves him alone while he shakes and tries not to scream, then climbs on the cot and hooks himself behind Harry’s back as Harry fitfully dozes. Niall comes down to check on them every couple of hours, and in between, Louis’ even managed to drift off a few times here and there before being startled to alertness when Harry shifts or makes a noise, watching with bated breath for something going seriously wrong.

It doesn’t, until Louis gets up to prepare the sixth injection, and when he comes back Harry’s wide-eyed and looking off into the middle-distance, trembling finely with his teeth chattering.

“Harry?”

“No,” Harry says, harsh like it’s punched out of him. “No no no,” he keeps repeating, looking in Louis’ direction but not at him.

“Harry?” Louis repeats, taking a few steps that seem to echo unnaturally loudly. “You okay?” He extends a hand towards Harry’s tense form on the bed.

“Don’t touch me,” Harry hisses, curling violently away from it.

Louis drops the arm but stays rooted to the spot. “What’s wrong?” he says.

“Don’t come near me with that thing. I’m done. No more.” His words come out disjointed, broken up by harsh panting and what sounds like attempts at holding in whimpers.

“We’re so close,” Louis says, trying for consoling. “Just a few more, love, c’mon. Or do you…did you change your mind?”

“No,” Harry says, through gritted teeth. “Didn’t change my mind. Just… _fuck_ ,” he half-shouts, punctuating it with an arch off the bed that looks almost inhuman, like something out of the fucking Exorcist. (Which Louis has always thought was a fairly accurate portrayal, pea soup vomit notwithstanding). “Just do it,” he pants. “Before I lose my nerve.”

Louis obeys, giving him the shot as fast as he can and springing back when Harry arches even further this time, spitting out a stream of words Louis doesn’t recognize but knows from the inflection must be expletives in some language he doesn’t know. He backs away and disposes of the needle as the shakes start, and he wrings his hands, helpless to stop them or make it easier for Harry; they just have to wait it out.

It takes a lot longer, this time. They’ve been getting progressively worse, but it seems like the severity and length have doubled since the last shot. Louis watches the clock; it’s been ten minutes, and the convulsions show no sign of stopping. It’s a good thing the cot is bolted to the floor, because the solid iron frame is starting to squeak with the abuse Harry’s putting it through.

After what feels like an eternity, though, they start to dwindle. By the time Harry’s relatively still, just the shallow movements of his ribcage expanding and a few residual twitches in his extremities, it’s been close to half an hour. Louis swallows; hour six is the turning point, Niall had said, when the human part starts to take back over. Consequently, it becomes much more agonizing for the demon, whose human capacity for pain had been squashed and now rares back to life with ferocity.

It hurts just to look at him; Louis can’t imagine how Harry must be feeling. He steps closer, reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder, and has the breath knocked out of him when Harry rolls away, snarling, “Don’t _fucking_ touch me, you fucking fag.”

*

When he was eight, and they had driven down to Florida to see Mark’s parents—in August, which, up until that point, was the most uncomfortable Louis had ever been—Louis had, recklessly, with all his childhood overconfidence, seen, basking a few feet away from the water, in the sunlight, a snake that looked just like the one he had found in the playground at school last year, and which Mrs. Shapiro had told the class wasn’t poisonous, although its markings helped warn predators away from it. There had been a rhyme she had taught them, but Louis had been too eager looking out the window trying to see what was happening to pay much attention, and he’d forgotten it.

The snake—a Northern Scarlet, he did remember that—had been injured, which was why it was above ground during the daytime, and while the adults had sectioned off that part of the playground immediately, just in case, Louis’ class had eventually gotten to keep it as a pet, in a big tank with a creepy reddish light that hummed in the background all day and night.

Louis had proposed naming him Slytherin, or Malfoy, which many of his classmates had been enthusiastic about, but Mrs. Shapiro had said that since not everyone was reading Harry Potter, it wasn’t nice to name him that, and those were the bad guys, anyway—Louis had protested mightily—and so they had settled on Hiss, which Louis thought was a dumb name, especially because the snake barely ever hissed at all. Louis would know; he spent the most time watching him, and when they would assign classroom jobs, he always begged to be put in charge of feeding him. He usually got to, as well, because most of his classmates thought it was gross and sad that he ate frozen baby mice, but Louis didn’t care. Hiss—although he called him Malfoy in his head, still—was cool, and he liked Louis best. Sometimes they had staring contests; Malfoy always won, because he didn’t have eyelids, which was an unfair advantage, but Louis liked him anyway.

In third grade, there had been no Malfoy, and while Louis got to visit him sometimes, he missed him a lot, and so, while Jay and Mark were bickering over something in the cooler, Lottie and Fizzy at either of their sides, and Louis had gone wandering down the bank, he nearly squealed with delight when he saw Malfoy’s lookalike sitting on a pile of wet leaves, all curled up and looped over itself.

He’d gone running over to get a better look, and in his haste had slipped on the wet ground, falling on his elbows and knees inches away from the snake, which, faster than he could see it happen, reared up and bit him. He blinked; it didn’t really hurt, not more than the couple of times Malfoy had gotten overenthusiastic and nipped his fingers, but the shock of the fall and the bite and the fast, unpredictable movements of the snake, now slithering quickly away, made tears well up, and he flushed red, embarrassed, as he began to cry noisily, clutching his forearm over the bite and wailing like he used to when he was a dumb little kid and skinned his knee. Since he’d gotten older he’d instead started to show it off, especially if he got gravel or something in it, for as long as possible before an adult made him wash it off and stuck a bandage over it, but he was feeling too much, and the crying just happened.

His mom immediately came rushing over and demanded he tell her what happened; he just showed her the bite, and remembers that as one of the first times his mom had cursed in front of him, asking him urgently what the snake looked like. It had taken a few minutes for him to calm down enough to tell her, by which time the bite didn’t really hurt that much, but when he’d described it—red, black, and yellow—his mom’s face had gone white and her voice had shaken as she asked him whether the red and the yellow were touching. He didn’t know. It just looked like Malfoy. He told her as much, and she’d immediately hoisted him onto her hip, telling him repeatedly that it would be fine, nothing to worry about, they were just going to go have it looked at to be safe.

At the hospital—almost an hour’s drive away—her tone had changed, becoming urgent and almost angry. He was a little out of it; his head felt funny, but the bite didn’t hurt. The shot they gave him did, though, and he started crying again. The nurse had told him in a simpering voice that he was being very brave. They kept him several more hours for observation, and he fell in and out of consciousness; they were late getting to their grandparents’ house as a result, Louis flushing slightly while his mom and stepdad explained that Louis had mistaken a coral snake for a northern scarlet and that’s why they were here in the middle of the night and not at dinnertime as planned, and Louis had eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich one-handed (his bitten arm ached, ironically, now that he was fixed) and gone to bed, thinking about how he’d ruined his family’s day and made his grandparents (who weren’t even his real grandparents) wait up way into the night. By the time he was back at school, he was telling the story to anyone who would listen and showing off the little pink bite marks to general awe, but he stopped going to visit Malfoy as often, and committed the rhyme to memory: _Red touch black, venom lack. Red touch yellow, kill a fellow._

*

It takes a minute or two for Louis to come back to himself—maybe longer, actually. He checks the clock and realizes it’s been almost twenty.

“Alright,” he hears himself say, tinny and hollow. “Got it out of your system?” He doesn’t know where the fuck that came from, and he has a very strong feeling that he doesn’t want to; if it’s from Louis’ memories, that’s awful, and if it’s from Harry’s, that’s awful, too, and unknown. _Almost done_ , he tells himself. _Don’t think about it._

“Wouldn’t dad be impressed,” Harry says under his breath, barely audible but ringing in Louis’ ears.

“What did you say?” he hears himself say, embarrassed at the hoarseness of his own voice.

“Nothing,” Harry says.

“No, you said—” _God_ , just what had Harry seen? “You said something. Don’t lie.”

“That’s what my kind do, though. Your father told you enough, did you forget?”

Louis’ hands automatically go to his neck, which feels like he’s being throttled with how difficult it is to get breath in for the few beats after Harry says it. _Harry wouldn’t_ , he tells himself, but he just did. Multiple times.

 _He’s in pain_ , he thinks. _It’s not really him. He’s just lashing out and saying what he thinks will hurt the worst._ And it does, sharp and twisting, like there’s a knife in his gut. “Shut up,” Louis manages. _Smooth. Great comeback, son. “_ Fuck, _”_ he spits, clambering up and groaning at how his muscles protest the movement.

 _Home stretch_ , he tells himself. _Not long now._ He trains the corner of his eye on Harry as he moves toward the table and prepares the syringe, eyeing the holy water resting nearby. He doesn’t want to have to use it, and he doesn’t think he will, but it’s there. Harry doesn’t show any signs of trying to get up; in fact, he’s curled up in a ball again, silent.

Louis keeps his footsteps quiet as he approaches him, inhaling deeply through his nose. _Just one more after this_ , he reminds himself. _Almost there._

“No!” Harry shrieks, sitting bolt upright and doubling over, limbs flailing. “No no no no no!” It’s an inhuman wail, like a dying animal. Louis freezes with the syringe dangling from his lax grip. “No, please, stop,” Harry sobs, “I was good, I was good, I was _good_ …” He goes rigid, stiff as a board, and Louis takes his chance to insert the needle and press down on the plunger, holding Harry’s forearm down to the bed as the rest of his body arches up and a scream like nothing Louis has ever heard, but imagines must be what Hell sounds like, tears out of him, seeming to fill the whole room. His ears ring after it stops, and it takes him a minute once he’s on the floor beside Harry’s shaking form to figure out what he’s mumbling; Harry’s just staring at the ceiling, clearly somewhere far away, pleading, “Don’t hurt me please, I’ll do anything, I promise, anything, I can be good, so good, I promise, I swear, I’ll be so good for you—” He goes silent abruptly, eyes widening for a split second before he nods. “Yes, thank you, thank you, I will, let me show you, thank you, I’m good at this, thank you, let me—”

Louis stumbles over to the bucket in the corner and throws up.

*

Niall comes bounding downstairs barely a minute later, hair wild and face red. “You okay?” he asks Louis, gripping him by the shoulders as if to look him over. Louis automatically goes lax in the grip, and then shakes himself out of it. _Niall_ , he reminds himself, _not dad_ , _Niall_.

“Yeah,” he says. “What—why are you?”

“Looked like you might be hurt,” Niall says. When Louis just gives him a quizzical look, he sighs and points to a little black dot on the wall, hidden amongst the runes and symbols. Louis just thinks it’s paint, until he looks a little closer.

“You have a camera down here?” he says.

“Cameras,” Niall says. “There’s a few more. They don’t have sound, don’t worry.”

Louis swallows; he was about to ask, and is immeasurably grateful that Niall intuitively knew that he wanted privacy for this, once Harry started bringing up things from the depths of Louis’ mind, places he doesn’t often venture himself. “A regular James Bond, aren’t you?” he jokes weakly. His mouth tastes sour and his throat burns; there’d been nothing for him to throw up but acid and bile.

“That’s me,” Niall agrees, smiling grimly and putting on a pretty good imitation of Sean Connery. “The name’s Bond. Are you sure you’re alright? You look a bit green.”

“Fine,” Louis says, wiping his hand over his mouth and wincing at the smell. “Just—stressed, I don’t know.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Not so good,” Louis says. “I mean, I don’t know. I think he was just having some kind of hallucination.”

“Want me to stay down for the rest?”

Louis frowns. It makes sense, it’s just…god, it’s _Niall_ , why wouldn’t Louis trust him with this? Harry just looks so fragile, and Louis is afraid of what he might come out with next—not just what he knows about Louis, but what appear to be his own memories. God. Louis kind of wants to puke again.

“I’m staying,” Niall decides for him. “You look a right mess, and Zayn says the last bits can be…dangerous. Bit like an animal backed into a corner, y’know? The closer to human they get, the more panicked they become. And you’ve helpfully fucked up my fancy Devil’s trap.”

“Sorry,” Louis says.

Niall nudges him with his elbow, and then, when Louis flinches, says, “Sorry. I was just messing with you, it’s not a problem. He’s…different.”

“Yeah.”

Niall’s quiet for a while, the both of them looking at Harry’s small form on the cot. “I’ve never seen you like this,” Niall murmurs eventually.

“Like what?”

“Soft,” Niall says. “Dunno. Closest I’ve seen is when you’re lookin’ after kids, but it’s different.”

Louis nods, mouth pressed tight. There’s no real point to denying it, and he doesn’t want to. Not only would no one believe him, but _he_ wouldn’t believe him, and he just… _I love him_ , he tries, in his head, and it sends a shiver through him but doesn’t bowl him over or decimate him like he might’ve thought. The world doesn’t end. He tucks that thought away for later.

*

The eighth hour arrives sooner than he’s ready for it. Harry’s been catatonic since Niall came down, staring off into space and intermittently twitching or mumbling something inaudible but showing no signs he’s aware there’s anyone else in the room. Louis’ been trying not to look at him.

“Okay,” Niall says, when there’s ten minutes to go. “This would be easier if he were tied up like we planned—don’t give me that look, it was a necessary precaution—but we’ll have to make do. You know the incantation?” Louis nods, and it feels like only seconds before the clock’s saying it’s time.

It takes a moment for Harry to react after the eighth dose hits his bloodstream; Louis tries to take solace in the hope that this will be the last time he has to hear it, blinking away the tears that rise, unbidden. Harry’s eyes slip open, and they’re green.

“Harry?” he says. “H, can you hear me?”

“Louis,” Niall says with a warning tone, “c’mon, finish it.”

Right. “ _Exorcizamus te_ ,” Louis says, willing his voice to stay steady and loud. “ _Omnis immundus spiritus. Hanc animam redintegra, lustra!_ ” He breathes in deep, and on the exhale he drags the sharpened edge of his knife across his own palm, right down the life line, barely flinching at the sting and burn. He drops the knife to the floor with a clatter and, before he can hesitate, claps his palm over Harry’s mouth, closing his eyes and feeling the way Harry’s body convulses beneath his and Niall’s grip, and he thinks, _please, please, please work_ , says as loud as he can, “ _Lustra, lustra, lustra!_ ”

Even with his eyelids closed, the light is so bright that it wipes out his vision, black spots blinking in front of his eyes, making him cry out and use the hand that had been holding onto Harry’s shoulder to try to shield them from the assault, the high, piercing noise that accompanies it and makes his ears pop and protest.

And then it’s over. Everything in the room looks the same—Harry looks the same, except his eyes are closed and god, is he breathing? Louis checks and nearly feels his own heart stop before he picks up a pulse, weak but steady, below Harry’s jaw, checking his airways, which are clear.

“Did it work?” he asks. “Harry? Hey, hey, wake up, c’mon.”

“Wait,” Niall says, reaching behind him for the flask of holy water and twisting off the cap. “Got to be sure.”

Some part of Louis wants to curl protectively over Harry and hiss, but—it’s just water, if Harry’s human, it shouldn’t do anything, Niall’s right, so he gives a jerky nod and pulls Harry’s limp form half-into his lap, brushing his tangled hair away from his face. There’s a tiny wet splatter; he holds his breath, but nothing happens. Harry’s breathing is getting better, in fact.

“It worked,” Niall says, sounding breathless and incredulous. “Holy fuck, Mary mother of Jesus sodding Christ, it actually worked.”

The relief hits Louis like a tidal wave that decimates everything in his path, and he vaguely registers Niall calling his name as black spots crowd his vision and a swoop in his stomach says he’s about to faint. He uses the last of his cognition to make sure he falls backwards, so that he absorbs the blow and not Harry.

*

His mom kept her wedding china—her and Mark’s wedding, of course, she’d never been married to Troy—on the uppermost two shelves of the china cabinet in the dining room (which was really too large for the space, leaving little room for an actual table and chairs), and Louis could probably count on one hand the number of times he saw it out, and he’d never touched it, knowing by its inaccessibility and the care with which his mom handled it that it was fragile, and that he’d break it—reckless, clumsy, butterfingered Louis. Whenever he looked at it, he’d feel anxious, preemptively guilty for messing it up.

He gets the same feeling looking at Harry now, small and pale under a thin blanket that rises and falls ever so slightly with the motion of his ribcage—up, down, in, out, enough confirmation of life that Louis knows he shouldn’t reach out and touch, but he wants to, just to make sure, which is stupid. Niall said his vitals are good. He’s not in a coma, he’s just tired. Resting.

Louis feels a little pull of envy looking at him; he keeps nodding off, himself, and then jerking awake with a gasp and the awful sensation of falling from an unfathomable height, and then he’s here again, sitting in a winged armchair next to Niall’s guest bed, which contains Harry. Former demon. Louis doesn’t know what else to call him, yet. Phrases spring to mind unbidden. _Friend. Pain in my ass. Terrifying. Conundrum. Everything I want._ None of them fit, entirely, and most of them scare him, the _where do we go from here_ hanging between them thick like a cloud of noxious smoke. He has no idea what to do now; he could do anything, but he doesn’t know what the right thing is, now that all those options are available. So he sits and watches Harry.

He doesn’t reach out for Harry’s hand, afraid of breaking him further, but he clears his throat and tries to find some words, brave ones that he’s not sure he’ll be able to say once Harry does wake up. Not sure he’ll have the opportunity to say them, either. So he does now, in a whisper.

“Hiya,” he says. He watches for Harry to make a move, but he doesn’t, just the rise and fall of his chest and the barely perceptible flare of his nostrils. “I hope you’re feeling okay. Good dreams, and stuff. I didn’t—I don’t like it when you have nightmares, I can’t help wondering what they’re about. And then I feel terrible, and then I realize that whatever I’m imagining, you probably had it worse, and then I feel more terrible. So. Selfish of me, probably. Just like…I don’t know. I wanted to do the right thing. I don’t know if I did. I hope so.

“You—I want you to wake up, and tell me it’s okay. I want you to be okay. I don’t think—since you told me, um, what happened, and like…since everything, I’ve just been thinking how fucking unfair it all was, and, well. I couldn’t really tolerate that.

“I just—you make me feel in ways I haven’t felt…haven’t let myself feel in I don’t know how long. And god, you annoyed me so much at first. You, um. You make me feel just—a lot, in general. I think that’s a good thing. I’m pretty sure you do, too, which is why…anyway.” He clears his throat. “So, uh, long story short, I…care about you, a lot. Fuck, that’s a cop-out.”

He’d imagined—fleetingly, foolishly—a heartfelt, poetic declaration of love at Harry’s bedside, after which Harry’s eyes would flutter open and he’d stare at Louis with love and wonder, having somehow heard the whole thing, or at least felt it, and they would kiss, and then—Louis isn’t sure. His imagination hadn’t run that far.

“So,” he says, “it would be, uh, cool if you, y’know, woke up."

Cracks spread through the last few syllables, and he bites his own mouth closed, not trusting the integrity of his voice any further. He’s not going to cry at Harry’s bedside. He’s _not_. He notices, and winces at, how much lower and gruffer that command sounds in his head. He knows it’s his dad’s voice; he doesn’t know what to do about it. So he sits, and he waits; Harry doesn’t wake, and eventually he gets bold, and he carefully lifts up the blanket and sheet and crawls in next to him, barely an inch of space between their bodies, and stays there, breaths shallow and a little painful, until well past sunrise when he goes to sleep.

*

Louis doesn’t normally dream, for a variety of reasons; he usually doesn’t let himself sleep deeply enough that dreams have much of a chance, and he’s well aware that that isn’t healthy, but he’s not actually sure how to stop waking up every couple of hours, or how to knock himself out when he does need a good, solid few hours without any kind of chemical easing the way and, as a bonus, precluding any kind of dreaming. He has to give props to his dad for that one. Even if he suspects it would be largely his father that would feature in the dreams he doesn’t want to have.

Except that now he’s asleep and there’s his mom, whole and healthy and smiling at him, with her hair up in a scrunchie like she always did it for work, wearing Barney scrubs and sneakers and sitting on the loveseat from the first place Louis lived, when it was just the two of them. He doesn’t question the sofa being in the living room of the house they shared with Mark, even though a tiny part of him pipes up that they’d left that loveseat on the curb with a sign that said FREE because it was sort of falling apart and Mark had one, anyway.

Louis flings himself into her arms, and she smiles, extending them, but when he makes contact, her skin turns black and smoking where he touches her, charring and turning to ash, and he watches in horror as she falls away piece by piece, and then he’s alone, and something’s coming for him. He doesn’t know what it is, but he knows that he knows it and that it scares him and that it’s coming closer, advancing slowly but implacably, dogged and inevitable, and he braces himself.

He wakes before it descends, the sensation of rhythmic movement and noise halting all of a sudden, snapping him into consciousness, vaguely panicky with his heart jumping in his throat. He coughs, which keeps his eyes shut, for a few moments, and then blinks, his surroundings coming into semi-clarity and the sensation of the dream receding into the shadows.

He’s in a bed, and it’s overly warm, and there’s something heavy and still next to him, and for a split-second he thinks _Mom_ before he remembers and tries to ignore the way it feels like someone has his throat in a vice grip, and thinks, _that’s Harry_ , convincing himself it’s a good thing. And it is; he feels the grip relax, and shakes his head to dispel the last of the murky dream-fog, taking a deep breath in and holding it, becoming aware of Harry, awake but silent and still, next to him, the sounds of the room, the gentle vibrations of someone talking downstairs and the slight rustle of wind through the trees outside. It’s so quiet. He feels a little afraid to exhale into the silence, to disrupt the fragility of the atmosphere that feels a little like an intricately weaved, fine web trembling with dew drops that threaten to tear the whole thing apart if they become too heavy.

Harry breaks it for him. “Hi,” he says quietly. Louis feels, and hears, him start to breathe again, quick and shallow but steady.

“Hello,” Louis croaks, wincing at the crack in his voice and blinking rapidly to try to get his vision to focus on Harry facing him. When he does, he discovers that Harry’s not looking at him, which is unusual; Harry stares, as a rule. Instead, his gaze—all human, now, but tinged red with prominent vessels—flicks around the room, uneasy and skittish, and when Louis impulsively reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, he recoils. “Sorry,” Harry says, rushing like he’s scared.

“Sorry,” Louis mumbles. He feels like a moron, with his hand still extended, but he doesn’t move. “How are you feeling?” he asks, because it seems like a good, neutral question.

It’s not; Harry’s face crumples and he starts crying, silently and painful to look at, because it’s the kind of crying that should make a lot of noise, whines and snorts and gasps, but he’s visibly holding that back, and Louis doesn’t know what to do. Harry’s arms come up to shield his face, and then his knees up toward his chest, until he’s curled in the fetal position, facing Louis, who tries to feel reassured that Harry’s back isn’t towards him until he lets himself remember what it feels like to be in this position, and how from a defensive viewpoint it makes no sense to show your back to the threat.

“Harry,” he says, helplessly, trying to make his voice as soothing as he can and grimacing internally at the way he sounds like he’s talking to a wild animal he’s trying to convince not to attack him. “Harry, what’s wrong, what hurts?” Harry says something inaudible. “Sorry, love, could you repeat that? I just want to help.”

Harry’s voice is a little louder when he manages to say, _everything_.

Immediately, Louis goes into nurse mode. “Okay, Niall has Vicodin for his knee, I’ll get you some, just sit tight.”

“No,” Harry croaks. “Like...not hurting, I don’t know. Just overwhelming. Everything.”

Louis is trying really hard not to panic about the disjointed way Harry’s speaking and the possibility of brain damage. He takes a deep breath. “Everything hurts or everything is overwhelming?”

“Both?” Harry says, and then he starts to cry again.

“Hey, shh,” Louis says, sending up a silent prayer for help. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” He takes a guess; he figures Harry’s probably not up to articulating much right now. Louis isn’t, either, but he can try. “You’re not used to being human,” he says, like a question. He waits for Harry’s nod to continue. “And it feels a lot different, huh? More?” Harry nods again, and he goes on, bolstered. “So everything feels overwhelming because you’re not used to things feeling like this much.” _Because someone hurt you so badly the only way for you to cope with it was to learn how not to feel it_ , he doesn’t say, but the thought feels like it burns his insides, so hot it scorches them black in spots. He closes his eyes and visualizes himself stomping on it like the remains of a pyre on which he’s just salted and burned remains. Louis was never a Boy Scout, but he knew from early on how to put a fire out completely, and picturing it works well enough at dissipating the red he’d started to see and re-focusing him on Harry, whose face he still can’t see.

“Can I…” He trails off, hoping Harry will finish the sentence for him. He doesn’t. Louis has to be brave. “Can I hold you?”

Harry tenses minutely, silent. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he says in a small voice. “Sorry. Just. Touch.”

“Okay,” Louis says, his throat tight. He can respect that; it’s fine, it just sucks. He wants proof under his own hands that Harry’s here, with him, alive, wants to be able to provide some sort of comfort. He wants Harry to want him back.

“Sorry, it’s stupid, just like—”

“Nah, I’m stupid,” Louis says. “Sorry for asking.”

“No,” Harry says, raising his head enough to frown. His face is tear-streaked and pale, but...Louis can’t put a finger on exactly how Harry looks like there’s more life in him. Maybe he’s imagining it; Harry looks like a mess, frowning with swollen red eyes and tangled hair and smelling awful and crying, all snotty and gross. He’s the best thing Louis’ ever seen; he never wants to stop looking at him. He realizes he’s staring and ducks his gaze, cheeks flaming.

“I want to,” Harry says, making Louis snap his head back up. “I don’t know.  It’s just...too much, looking at you hurts and I don’t know why.”

“Sorry,” Louis says, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. _Fuck_. He’s not going to cry, except that he is, throat going tight and strangling his breaths.

But that makes Harry start crying again, and a distant part of Louis is rolling his eyes at the two of them lying in bed together crying. “No no no,” Harry says, “no, that _hurts_ , don’t cry, please, I love you.”

The noise Louis makes is very possibly inhuman. It sounds vaguely like a banshee, actually (Louis would know), just on an incredibly miniature scale. _What._ Harry looks stricken, though, so that comes first. He forces himself to open and close his mouth a few times to get the hang of working it and says, without thinking, “Me too.” And then it’s just out there, between them on the bed, and the world, again, doesn’t seem to begin collapsing, but it also feels like Louis’ been turned upside down and then righted so quickly he’s not sure if it happened at all, or something like that. He starts laughing, sounds crazy to his own ears, but he can’t stop.

“That wasn’t very romantic,” Harry says, flat but not deadened, just morbid like how he talks when he’s trying to be funny, and when Louis looks, there’s mischief in the wry twist of his mouth, something around the eyes that he recognizes, thinks, _yes, I know you_.

“You’re you,” Louis whispers when he catches his breath. “You’re…” He trails off, unable to find the words and desperately, desperately wanting to close the space between them and hug Harry until not even air molecules can fit in between their bodies.

Harry bites his lip. Louis’ hand twitches toward him, and he pulls it back. “I don’t know who me is,” Harry says in a small voice, inching his own hand towards where Louis’ is clenched in the sheet to stop himself from reaching out and touching Harry before he’s said it’s okay. Louis catches his eye and tries to ask, _is this okay?_

Harry just takes his hand; loosely, with a tremor so pronounced Louis can feel it reverberate up his own arm, but there.

Louis squeezes back. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispers.

*

After a while of just lying there, sometimes talking, sometimes touching, Harry gets frightened and skittish in a way Louis can’t seem to help with, and, after a little encouragement, he admits that he wants to be alone, so Louis leaves him in the late morning.

“Y’alright?” Niall asks when he walks into the kitchen. Louis doesn’t answer until he’s got a new pot of coffee going, and it’s rude of him, but he has to work for a while at biting his lip hard enough that he doesn’t feel like he’ll cry if he says something. He could play it off as his back hurting or something, but Niall would see through it. He’s seen Louis in just about every kind of pain, even the kinds Louis doesn’t remember. Maybe Niall would know how to deal with this—this stupid, insignificant thing—though, since he’s dealt with Louis’ breakdowns before he learned to keep them under control. Maybe. Louis is struck with the desire to ask for a hug, all of a sudden. Niall would probably do it. Niall would _definitely_ do it. Niall gives great hugs.

Louis doesn’t ask, though. “Fine,” he says. “How are you?”

“Good,” Niall says. “Don’t think you are, though.”

Louis blinks. Well. He wasn’t expecting that. He doesn’t know how to respond to it. He doesn’t want to snap and yell at Niall, because he realizes that would be unfair, and also because again, he’s worried about bursting into tears. “It’s been a rough week,” he says, only semi-strangled.

“True, that,” Niall agrees. “Hungry?”

Yes, but he doesn’t want to eat. If Niall’s asking, though, that means that Niall is hungry. “I’ll make something,” Louis says. “Um...pancakes?”

“That’s alright,” Niall says. “Don’t need salmonella, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Shut it,” Louis says, opening the fridge and staring. What goes in pancakes? He forgets. He actually isn’t completely incompetent, it’s just that he learned to cook out of necessity and only for himself, so the things he knows how to make are limited and not exactly gourmet.

“There are Eggos in the freezer,” Niall plies. Louis loves Eggos. “Nick loves ‘em. You think you can handle the toaster, or should I get him in here?”

“Fuck off, Neil,” Louis grumbles, but gratefully takes the yellow box out and plunks four waffles into the little retro toaster Niall has on the counter. There are like twenty more in storage somewhere. Niall collecting vintage toasters is perhaps the weirdest thing about him, even if you do count all the supernatural shit.

They eat in quiet; Louis savors the peace for as long as it lasts.

“I should have told you I was talking to Zayn,” Niall says, the way he’s chewing on his thumbnail betraying his anxiety. “I didn’t want to stress you out more, but I understand that you feel betrayed.”

“I—” Louis starts. That’s not exactly it; certainly, his instinctive reaction was anger, but now when he thinks about it it’s just a dark twist of shame deep in his abdomen, sadness tugging at his throat. “It’s okay,” he settles on. “Don’t sweat it.”

Niall frowns like he’s going to argue, opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “Would you...I think he wants to talk to you. That’s the impression I got.”

Louis’ throat tightens, and then relaxes. He breathes out long and slow. He’s—he’s not ready for that, might not ever be. That wound runs deep, and it feels open again, just barely scabbed-over; this conversation is picking at it, making him wince. “Not yet,” he says. “Maybe. Um. I don’t know.”

“That’s more or less what I told him,” Niall says. He definitely sees Louis’ mouth turning down at the corners, because he follows it up with, “and that’s all I said about you. We weren’t gossiping about you behind your back, or summat.”

Louis sighs. He believes him—Niall’s a terrible liar, anyway—and he feels himself make the decision to let it go, leaving him lighter, just a bit, when he does. “Thanks, Ni,” he says. “Seriously. For...everything.” It comes out awkwardly, and Niall sniggers.

“Don’t mention it, Tommo,” he says, going quiet and pensive for a while before he says, “I’m thinking of becoming a foster parent. Or, well, maybe not officially, but more or less.”

“Okay,” Louis says, slowly, blinking. “Why’s that?”

“‘Cos I think, like, when kids like you and me, for example, when we go into the system and we’ve lost family to things we can’t explain, that’s…it’s hard.”

Louis nods. He knows.

“So I figure, y’know, maybe there’s a way I could help, like, long-term.”

“Could you do it? Like, for real?”

Niall shrugs. “Dunno. Worth a try, innit?”

Louis sighs. “You haven’t found Stasha anywhere to go, then?”

“No,” Niall says, a little guilt flickering over his face. “I’d love her to stay here, y’know? I know, you don’t have to say anything. I dunno if it’ll happen. She has a great-aunt, apparently, in Detroit. I’m going to talk to her about it later.”

“That’s good,” Louis says.

Niall sighs. “Yeah.”

Louis a year ago might have internally rolled his eyes at Niall being morose over this, a Louis who didn’t let himself want impossible things (at least didn’t let himself admit it), but he gets wanting to keep someone he probably can’t keep. And he’s done some crazy shit, so the fact that Niall’s only procrastinating getting in contact with the aunt isn’t anything for him to turn his nose up at.

“You want me to talk to her?” he says, instead. Niall doesn’t like being the bearer of bad news, and a look of palpable relief crosses his face. “Okay,” Louis says. “Will do.”

“You’re the best, Lou,” Niall says, getting up with a few popping noises and a wince and kissing Louis on the head. “In my room if you need me.”

 _I do need you_ , Louis thinks. _Maybe that’s alright._ “Okay,” he says. “I’ll let you know.”

*

“Hey, Louis,” Stasha says, sprawled on the couch with a bowl of cereal. She’s mostly poking it around the bowl with her spoon. Reflexively, Louis wonders if she’s eating enough; she still looks thin.

“Hey kiddo.” He tries his best to keep his voice upbeat and not let the exhaustion and despair from the last week eke through.

“You okay?” she asks, looking up at him and frowning.

He waves a hand. “Fine, fine,” he says. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” she says. She scoops up another spoonful of disturbingly blue cereal.

“What’s that?” Louis asks.

“Boo Berry,” she says, matter-of-fact. “‘S good.”

Louis’ heart twinges, and he smiles. “You know,” he says, carefully, “when I was little, my mom used to call me Boo Bear.”

She nods. “That’s cute,” she says.

“My sisters picked it up too,” he continues. “I’m pretty sure Fizz didn’t know my actual name until she was about five.”

“You had sisters?” she says, curious.

Louis considers his next words. “Have,” he says, hoping he doesn’t upset her. She doesn’t show it, if he does. “Although before last week it had been twelve years since I’d seen them.”

“Wow,” she says. She’s...fifteen? “That’s a long time.” It would be, to her. He’s reminded of Harry saying the same thing to Louis, only with possibly hundreds of painful years of his own to compare it to. “How...why didn’t you see them?”

Louis takes a deep breath, and, as honestly as possible, he tells her everything, glossing over some of the worse stuff with his dad—she doesn’t need him to put that on her—start to finish, wearing out his already hoarse voice. He tries to keep it quick but not robotic.

“So,” he finishes, “I’ve got sisters, now, and they’ve got a family, but I’m not really part of it. I dunno what’s going to happen.”

“That sucks,” Stasha says quietly. “Me and, um, Jeremy were...close.”

Her brother, Louis remembers. He doesn’t push her. “I’m here if you want to talk about it,” he says, “and I won’t make you, but you’ll figure out how to talk about it, and it’ll...you get better at dealing with it,” he settles on, as truthful as he can be. “Did you know you have a great-aunt in Detroit?”

She furrows her eyebrows, and then, after a moment, nods. “I think I remember that.”

Louis takes a deep breath. “How would you feel about...maybe going to stay with her?”

It’s like a shutter closes behind her eyes. “You don’t want me here?”

“That isn’t it at all,” he says, a little more forcefully than he intended. He hopes it gets the point across. He switches tacks. “D’you know what Niall told me earlier?”

“What?” She sounds dubious.

“He’s thinking about trying to become a foster parent,” Louis says.

Just like that, the shutter opens. Louis wonders if she’s aware she’s doing it. “Then could I stay here?”

“Well,” Louis says, “it’s...complicated. But, um, no, not really. He’s really gutted about it. You know he loves having you here.”

“Why not?”

“Legal reasons,” Louis says. “That’s the whole thing, okay? And...well, you deserve to have a normal life.”

She snorts. “Like that’s possible.”

“Normal wasn’t the right word,” Louis says, “but you can have a good life, okay?”

“You didn’t,” she says. “No offense.”

Louis laughs through his wince. She pulls no punches, reminds him of Lottie in that way. Maybe just because he’s seeing his sisters in everything, these days, but there’s a fire to her that Louis definitely isn’t imagining. “No,” he agrees, “which is why you should do the exact opposite of what I did. Stay in one place. Don’t go running after demons.”

“Niall doesn’t run after demons,” she starts to argue. “I could—”

“He used to,” Louis says, “and then I did something stupid that got him hurt. You’re so smart, don’t waste that on hunting. I bet you could get a full scholarship to any school you want.” He has no idea, totally clueless about how college applications work, but he feels instinctively that it’s true, and it’s worth it for the way her eyes light up a little.

“Stanford,” she says, almost like it’s a secret.

Louis flinches, still, but he rolls with it. “Stanford,” he agrees. “You’ll get there.”

*

They’re in the middle of arguing about Harry Potter—Stasha’s defending Snape, which Louis is _very_ concerned about, and he refuses to relent until he’s set her head straight—when Louis feels a presence lingering over his shoulder.

“Hi, Harry,” Stasha says. “How’re you?”

“Good,” Harry says, sounding just like himself, voice deep and slow with a little laughter in it, like he’s waiting to deliver the punchline of a joke. Louis feels the corners of his mouth tick up. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” she chatters. “Louis is trying to convince me Snape is evil. But in the seventh book—”

“Which Harry hasn’t read yet!” Louis says, overly loudly. “And which we will not spoil for him!”

“Ugh, whatever, anyway—hang on, you look different.” Her face pinches into something confused. “Your face is all...you aren’t a demon anymore, are you?”

Louis physically reels backward, almost falling over, and he hears Harry laugh at him. _What?_ “What?” he says.

“No, I’m not,” Harry says. “Good eye.”

Stasha beams at the compliment. “Thanks!”

“Wait,” Louis says, “you could...he looked different before?”

“Yeah,” Stasha says, like it’s obvious. “His face was all...scary. No offense,” she says to Harry.

“None taken,” he murmurs.

“You can see demons?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“She’s psychic,” Harry says. “Quite a powerful one.”

Louis splutters. “And no one thought to tell me?”

“Wait,” she says, “I’m psychic? Can other people not see demons?”

“No,” Harry says. “You’re special.”

“See, Louis, you could _use me,_ ” Stasha starts, tone gearing up for another impassioned argument.

“Actually,” Harry cuts in, “Louis, I need to talk to you upstairs. It’s very important.” He winks, exaggerated, and Louis mouths _I love you_ before he thinks about it, delighting in the way Harry’s dimples pop in his flushed cheeks.

“I saw that,” Stasha grouches, but she opens her book back up and lets them go.

*

“What’s so important, then?”

“Nothing,” Harry says, with a little smile. “You were just making _save me_ eyes.”

Louis pauses, thinking. Harry’s mood has been unpredictable and difficult to interpret; he seems mirthful, now, but Louis has to tread carefully lest he put his foot in his mouth and change that. Except in not wanting to say the wrong thing, he apparently hesitates too long, because Harry’s face falls, and he does that thing where he suddenly seems half his size from the way he’s holding himself.

“Harry,” Louis starts. He sits on the edge of the bed, and Harry follows suit, just a few inches away, close enough for Louis to feel the heat of him through their thin t-shirts. Louis would put on more clothes, but it’s _hot_ , summer apparently refusing to go down without a fight. It’s hotter up here, too, and Louis already feels his hair sticking to the back of his neck with perspiration.

Harry sighs. “I know you want to ask,” he says, looking up and holding Louis’ gaze for a few moments. “I want to tell you. Kind of. Actually, not really, but...I dunno. Go ahead, ask me whatever you like.”

Louis swallows, giving himself a moment to consider, but there’s one question that he needs to ask before he loses his nerve. “What did...what did they, um—what happened, down there?”

“Which time?”

“Um. Whichever. I was thinking a lot, those few days when you were gone…”

Harry chuckles darkly. “Was it really only days?”

Right. Time works differently in Hell. Fuck, Harry could’ve been down there for months. Anything could’ve happened, and Louis tries not to imagine but fails. Harry had come back so...he doesn’t want to say _broken_ , but that’s the only word he can think of. “Um,” he says. “Yeah. Uh. Couple days. Well. Three.”

Harry takes a deep breath, and when he talks, it’s with that sort of detached monotone Louis hates, but Harry’s telling him things, so he can live with it. “I mean, you need to—for context, um, my first trip down there...everything, basically. Anything you’re thinking, they did to me. Or made me do to them. Or made me do to other people. Um. Caroline, like I said, mostly...was mostly in charge, so...anyway, so everyone kind of saw me as her pet, right?”

Louis feels bile rising in his throat. “Right,” he says. _Wrong, wrong, wrong._

“So when I went back down, um, things were...a bit chaotic, everyone fighting over her position and stuff, so like. I was part of that.”

Louis frowns. “You wanted her job?”

“No,” Harry says. “No, I mean…um, I was part of what they were fighting over. ‘Cos I was, like, her...not exactly her property, but, y’know. I was hers.”

Louis feels his own hand tighten on his thigh, bruising. “What happened?” he says, repressing the urge to shout _what?_ And maybe break something. That wouldn’t be productive.

“I don’t—I don’t really remember, to be honest with you. It’s all a bit of a blur. It’s—Hell is physical, and it isn’t, at the same time? Like, it’s...I dunno how to describe it, really, so it’s not like I was running from place to place, not physically. But, um, a lot of different...I kept getting caught, and then I’d escape, and then I’d get caught again, and it just went on like that. And then I ran into Taylor, and I’d helped her out of a couple of sticky situations a while back, so she took me in for a bit.”

Only about half of that made sense, but Louis nods. He gets the sentiment: ownership, running, escape. He remembers the black, pulsing fear he’d felt when Harry possessed him. “Out of sheer goodwill?”

Harry’s mouth twitches upwards in what could be a half-smile. “I may have threatened her slightly.”

“Slightly?”

“Demon politics,” Harry says, “are very complex, and the most valuable thing you can have—besides souls, I guess, but those are valuable differently—are secrets. It’s not very interesting.”

“Right. Sorry. That’s me, I always pick out the least important thing to focus on.”

“You do,” Harry agrees. The smile grows ever so slightly.

“So,” Louis says. “Taylor took you in.”

“You know the rest,” Harry says, the shut-down look threatening to close off his face at any moment.

“Actually, I don’t have a clue what was going on inside your head, so.”

“Neither do I,” Harry murmurs. He pauses, cocking his head. “Well, that’s not quite true, but...I honestly, um, don’t remember a lot. Sorry.”

“I get it,” Louis says.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Oh—”

“Shit,” Harry says. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Lou, I had no right—”

Louis cuts him off. “It’s alright.”

Harry looks stricken. “It’s not, though. The things I _said—_ ”

“Nothing I haven’t said to myself,” Louis says. “I deserved it, anyway.” He fidgets, itching to change the subject.

“No—”

“I did.”

“But they’re not true.” Harry sort of sounds like he might cry. Louis hates it.

“Okay. Let’s not talk about it,” he says. “You didn’t really mean to look, did you?”

Harry shakes his head so vigorously Louis is a little worried he’s going to hurt himself. “No, promise, stuff just kept showing up.”

Louis laughs, a little bitterly. “I know how that goes,” he says. “It’s alright. Really, H. And I’ve done way worse shit.”

Harry seems mollified by that, at least for now, and there’s another shift in the atmosphere; he’s looking at Louis’ mouth, Louis’ sure of it, and he knows his own gaze is flicking back and forth between clear green irises and dark pink lips, and that it’s plain as day what he’s thinking, but he can’t—what if Harry says yes because he doesn’t know how to say no? What if he’s afraid Louis will hurt him? What if he thinks he doesn’t have any other options? Harry’s said all of these, in some way or another, so how can Louis _want_ this badly and—

Harry surges forward and kisses him, pulling Louis closer to his side of the bed. It’s a nothing of a kiss, compared to the ones they’ve shared before, but the silence of it is staggering; everything else falls away in perfect quiet, just the hush of their breaths and the tiny noise Harry makes. It’s so much better, Louis wants to cry. There’s barely any space between them, but it’s too much, so he presses closer, closer. It’s intoxicating to be so near Harry after being starved for his presence for what feels like eons but was really only a week or so.

Harry shifts, letting out a little noise, and Louis freezes, though not in a bad way, when he realizes the thing poking his thigh isn’t a thing but Harry, hard and rutting very slightly against him.

“Harry,” Louis says, still not moving, noting the minute shifts of Harry’s hips, canting forward and creating blistering heat between them. “Did you…” He trails off, and then resolves himself. “What we did, um, before all of that, in the, uh, living room, um...did...was that okay?”

Harry stills, pulling back as far from Louis as he can without falling off the bed. “I wanted it,” he says, small. “Thought you did too, I’m sorry, _sorry_.” He starts to choke up, mumbling apologies that get all jumbled up.

“Woah woah woah,” Louis says, hands itching to reach out and steady him but eyes catching on the defensive set to Harry’s shoulders, the way his shoulders are caving in to make his chest concave and small. But Harry’s seemed to respond positively sometimes, and Louis frets for a second before he remembers that he can ask. Right. “Um,” he clears his throat. “Can I...can I come over there?”

Harry bites his lip, looking upwards but not meeting Louis’ gaze. “Sure,” he says quietly. It sounds like a no.

Louis is getting choked up, now, feeling helpless and lost and way in over his head. “You can tell me no,” he says, doing his best to keep his voice steady and calm. “That’s why I asked.”

Harry looks at him, confused and wide-eyed. “You won’t be mad?” he says, sounding positively childlike. Louis’ heart breaks again. He had spent so many years inuring it and Harry’s got it raw and vulnerable and shattering constantly all over again, sensitive like when he was a kid. Maybe that’s what this requires, though. Louis needs to think about it, but not right now.

“No,” he says, more firmly. “I won’t be mad, babe, I just want to help.”

“Then,” Harry starts, tentative, “...no? Um, not right now,” he says. “Maybe later. Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Louis says.

“Could you…” Harry frowns, and shakes his head.

“No, go on,” Louis encourages.

Harry gets underneath the covers and then strips his shirt off, putting it on the floor beside the bed. He’s going to get too hot like that; Louis turns the fan on. “Hold hands?” Harry says. “Is that okay? Sorry if it’s stupid, I just…”

Louis’ throat feels dry; the fan whirrs to life. He tries to remember the last time he held anyone’s hand besides to move an injured person or to be moved when he was injured, and he can’t. Not since he used to get Lottie from school and hold her hand walking across the street. It’s kind of monumentally sad, and it’s the kind of thought he’d have shrugged at a few months ago but which now feels like a flayed nerve, sparking and sizzling with pain. “Sure,” he manages, reaching out his hand for Harry to take. It’s sweaty and disgusting, and so’s Harry’s—bigger, softer, less weathered—and the grip is too tight to be comfortable, bones squeezing too tightly together, but it’s grounding, and Louis thinks, _yes_.

“You okay?” Harry asks, snapping Louis out of his daze. Something in him says _we don’t like that question, he shouldn’t be asking,_ but it’s tired, and Louis doesn’t have the energy, so he nods, relaxing and then tightening his grip on Harry’s hand to say, _yeah_. His fingers start to go numb before he falls asleep, but he doesn’t mind.

*

He wakes up with horrible pins and needles all up his arm, and he winces, extricating himself from Harry’s sleep-slackened grip and massaging the limb through the pain as feeling returns to it, swallowing against the tang of sleep in his mouth that says it’s been much longer than he usually sleeps, as does the quality of light in the room, gone soft gold. It was afternoon when they fell asleep. _They. Him and Harry. Harry, who shared a bed with him and who’s still here._ Louis takes a deep breath and lies back down, careful not to wake Harry up.

Harry glowing bluish in the moonlight took Louis’ breath away, but watching him in slanted, late afternoon sunlight, the insistent kind that wiggles itself through the blinds and into the room seemingly regardless of how you try to keep it out, makes something in him settle, contented instead of jarred and awed like he might have thought. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Harry’s human, now, but he looks smaller, and Louis recognizes the protective ferocity that sparks when he looks at him, at the little frown on his face and the way he’s curled in on himself slightly in his sleep, ready to shield his vital organs but with the blanket long kicked away for being too warm.

Holding his breath for no real reason, Louis shifts a little so that he can see more of Harry, and that’s when he does lose the air inside him. He remembers the smooth, muscled planes of Harry’s abdomen under his hands, twitchy and responsive to the slightest touch, but that flesh isn’t there anymore. Thick, pink, raw-looking webs of scar tissue knit the slivers of unmarked skin together, and they pull and stretch as he breathes deeply; Louis winces in sympathy, and, before he can stop himself, reaches out to touch one with the tip of his finger. It’s soft, like velveteen, both fragile and sturdy feeling. Louis is by no means unfamiliar with scars—he has enough of them, himself—but he’s never really seen something like this, not up close. Harry’s tattoos are all torn to shreds. The butterfly’s wings are all separated, and it’s lost its head entirely. Unbidden, Louis feels tears welling in his eyes.

“Ugly, aren’t they?” Harry murmurs. Louis startles; he hadn’t realized he was awake, and he retracts his hand, flushing in shame. He should know better than to touch without permission, now. But as he watches Harry’s face, he sees it fall further, screwing up for a heart-stopping second that looks as though he might cry before he visibly collects himself. “Yeah,” he says in a wobbly voice. “Sorry.”

“What?” Louis gets it the second he says it. “Oh, Harry— _no_ , no they’re not ugly, I just—I was just surprised. I thought you’d...y’know, when you fixed your body.”

“It’s fixed,” Harry says. “I didn’t have the energy to get rid of them, though.”

Louis swallows, and gets brave, because Harry’s shrinking in on himself, hands trying to cover as much of his abdomen as possible. “Can I touch?” he asks. The asking, he knows, is important. Maybe the most important part.

Harry hesitates for a few moments, but he says, quietly, “yes,” and he doesn’t move his hands, so Louis does it for him—gently, gently. He pries his wrists away and then lays his own palms, one next to the other, across the middle of the wreckage. The skin is soft and new, wrinkled and a little raised, pink like Harry’s chewed lips. Louis maps the new topography of Harry’s middle with his palms and fingertips for a minute, staring intently. When he looks up, he sees tears in Harry’s eyes, his lip going white where he’s biting it.

“Hey,” Louis says, and kisses him, right where his teeth sink in. Harry releases his own lip and kisses back, and Louis moves his hands over the scars with intention, reverence. “You’re gorgeous,” he says against Harry’s mouth. It’s easier with his eyes closed, being completely honest. There’s more he could say—three words, in particular, come mind—but he doesn’t, tries to communicate it with the gentle pressure of his hands and mouth.

May as well drive the point home, he figures, tearing himself away from Harry’s mouth—difficult, but necessary—and wiggling down his body to plant a soft kiss on the new tissue, right where his butterfly once was when it was whole. He kisses each ripped-apart piece, noses at the slashed-up swallows, pecks each nipple—he’s pleased to discover that all four are still intact—and smiles internally at Harry’s little gasps. He moves lower; the ferns here are mostly untouched. The top few leaves on each are a little ragged, but there are clean curved lines for him to kiss and lick his way up.

“I love these,” he says, emboldened by how Harry arches up into his mouth. He might be hard—Louis doesn’t know. He’s not trying to work Harry up, only trying to discover the newness of Harry’s scarred, all-human self, and a little bit trying to tell Harry that it’s okay, that he likes it, scars and damage and all.

“Me too,” Harry says, a little strangled. “They’re the first ones I got, after Hell.”

“Really?” Louis drags his mouth, dry lips catching every so often, along the smooth curves of ink, dark black and soft grays, the skin raised in places and hot everywhere. He glances up at Harry’s face to check that it’s ok, and Harry gives him a tiny nod. “The ferns?"

“Yeah,” Harry says, one hand coming so tentatively to card through Louis’ hair, brushing strands aside. Louis hates people touching his hair. Irritatingly, Harry is no exception, but he decides that he can put up with it. It’s nicer than anyone else touching his hair, so that’s something. It matters. Louis is sure. “They’re laurels, though. I, um…do you know the story of Apollo and Daphne?”

“Very vaguely,” Louis says. It’s a little bit of an exaggeration; he has next to no idea. He thinks he remembers reading something in high school.

“Well,” Harry says. Louis can feel the vibrations of his speech where he’s resting his chin on Harry’s belly, rising and falling minutely with his breaths. “Basically, Apollo got into a fight with Eros, the god of love, so in revenge Eros shot Apollo with an arrow that made him head over heels for Daphne, this nymph who was a follower of Artemis, and like, completely chaste, and then he shot Daphne with an arrow that made her absolutely loathe Apollo. Ovid wrote this whole thing, but the gist is he chased her, and he wouldn’t stop, until finally she prayed to her father, this river-god, for help, to get rid of him, and he turned her into a laurel tree. There’s a really beautiful sculpture of it in Rome, by Bernini.”

“So her dad turned her into a tree?” Louis furrows his brow.

“Yes,” Harry says, “because the only way she could escape Apollo was to transform into something he couldn’t take. He cut some branches, though, and started wearing them.”

“Pretty fucked up,” Louis says.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “So.”

“I think I get it,” Louis says, sensing Harry’s discomfort with elaborating. And he does. In order to keep from being hurt, Harry had to become something else, sacrifice his very being to transform into something less vulnerable. Humanity was too fragile, too easily violated. Who can blame him for giving it up? Harry, probably. Harry, _definitely_. “You did what you had to do to survive,” he says carefully, lifting his chin so his words aren’t muffled by Harry’s flesh. “You protected yourself.”

“I did horrible things,” Harry whispers; Louis feels his own gut clench when he sees the shine of his eyes and the slow roll of a single tear down the side of his temple. It hurts impossibly more to watch him hold it in. “I killed—I did awful things, so many people—” He’s starting to hyperventilate. Louis cuts him off.

“Yeah, maybe,” he says, because it won’t do any good to pretend like Harry’s never done anything wrong, just like Louis hates it when people try to tell him he’s done nothing wrong. But Harry’s done so much right; they’re here because Harry pissed off his boss by saving a bunch of kids from going to Hell, for fuck’s sake. “But you saved all those kids, remember?” He has to stop to make sure his voice won’t crack. “You saved my little sister.”

“But I only did that because of you,” Harry says, miserably. It figures he’d focus on that, and not the people he’d helped long before Louis came into the picture, when he had very little to gain from it and a lot to lose. “Because I lo—Never mind, it’s stupid, you heard what she said—”

“Caroline?” Louis interrupts. He takes Harry’s silence as a _yes._ “She said a load of bullshit, Harry. She’s dead. You’re alive,” Louis says. “I’m alive. You fucking beat her, and you’re human again even though she tried her best to stamp out that part of you. You disobeyed her and you got away and you kicked her sorry ass, and she’s dead. You’re here, and she’s not.”

“Feels like she is,” Harry mumbles. Louis wants to snap in frustration, but he catches himself, thinks, _I know_.

“I know,” he says, gently, pressing a soft kiss to Harry’s hipbone. His head is right by his crotch, his upper body resting on one of Harry’s strong thighs, but it’s not sexual. Not anymore, at least. Louis hasn’t ever done this, laid in bed with someone and talked, especially not when the other person is mostly naked. It’s new, and it’s uncomfortable, but part of him likes it, being close like this. “I know, and it’s hard, and I’m so fucking sorry any of it happened to you. But you get another chance, now.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Harry says miserably, twitching with held-in sobs. Louis aches for him, crawling up the bed as quickly as he can without clobbering him and pulling Harry into his arms, stroking down his sweat-slick back, the tangles of his hair.

“Shhh,” he says, chin hooked over Harry’s shoulder. “You do. Baby, if anyone deserves a second chance at life, it’s you.” Dimly, he registers that he just called Harry _baby_ , and not for the first time. More than that, he doesn’t want it to be the last. He’s always known he wanted Harry, he’s not oblivious, but it’s strange to realize, now, that he wants Harry like this, vulnerable and worn down and trusting Louis for comfort. That he wants Harry every way, even the ugly ones.

“You think so?” Harry says, in a small voice.

“I do,” Louis whispers, squeezing Harry a little tighter in tandem with Harry’s muscles tensing, and he keeps squeezing until he feels them go lax, hears Harry’s breathing go deep and steady. He pulls back, keeping his arms where they are, and studies Harry’s face—his stupidly beautiful, sleep-swollen, pillow-creased, watery-red face. “You okay?”

Harry gives him a wobbly smile, with the shadow of a dimple. “I will be,” he says, quiet and honest.

“Me too,” Louis murmurs, and kisses him. Harry kisses back, syrupy and sweet. Louis’ never been all that enthralled by kissing; it was an important part of foreplay, sure, a prelude to more exciting things, but past his first tentative too-much-tongue experiences with Max in high school, he hasn’t appreciated kissing on its own. Maybe, he thinks—a cliché, he knows—it’s because he hadn’t been kissing Harry. He hadn’t been kissing Harry like this, in a warm bed with no impending doom between them, trying to figure out how to carry their own and each other’s pasts. For the first time, Louis feels like it’s possible.

It’s organic, natural, easy as breathing to move from this kind of deep kissing to gentle bites and strong sucks at Harry’s pulse points, drawing muffled groans from him, and from there to kiss his way down Harry’s scarred abdomen, flicking his gaze up to ask _is this okay_ with his eyes and grinning at the slightly frantic nod, to pull down the waist of Harry’s briefs and give what he’s entirely sure is the most reverent blowjob of his life to date. And it’s not—it’s still a dick, and sucking dick isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, and Harry’s big, so he chokes and his eyes stream, but it feels devotional, somehow. Maybe Louis’ just kidding himself, but he’s greedy for more of the sounds he pulls out of Harry’s mouth, the little furrow of his brow, the _oh oh oh_ gasps he makes right when he’s about to come and then the high-pitched whine and big pleading eyes when Louis pulls off and squeezes at the base, smirking and knowing he must look slutty as anything, wet mouth and blown pupils and tongue snaking out to slowly, lightly circle around the crown of Harry’s dick and dig into the slit and delight in how wet and squirmy Harry gets, responsive as anything, and to be taken a little by surprise when he arches off the mattress and snatches his cock away, jerking twice before spilling all over his own stomach. That does not feel natural or good. Louis wanted that; he leans forward and begins to lick it up, off the tender new flesh, but Harry’s hand in his hair stops him, and he looks up to glare.

The little line between Harry’s brows is here with a vengeance; he’s looking at Louis like he’s from outer space, or has two heads, or something. “You don’t have to,” he says.

Louis barely keeps himself from rolling his eyes. This is sensitive— _ha, ha_ —ground, he knows, and it makes his heart drop to remember that there must be a reason for this, but he feels like he has a point to make here, and dammit, he earned that load. “I want to,” he says, delighting in the scratch and hoarseness of his own voice, and when Harry inclines his head just slightly he sets back to work cleaning the bitter mess with his tongue, leaving a shiny trail of saliva in his wake as he laps along the patches of soft new tissue. When he’s done, he makes a point to look Harry in the eye and lick his lips. “Mmm,” he says. “Thanks, babe.”

It figures that Louis would fall in love—and god, that’s new, and if he thinks about it for more than a moment he still feels like a deer caught in blinding lights coming from four directions at once—with the one person he’s met who’s more fucked up about intimacy and sex than Louis is. He wouldn’t have thought he’d feel okay about it. He wouldn’t have thought it would happen at all, but here it is, and he hasn’t died. The feeling hasn’t swallowed him whole and burned him alive like he thought it would.

He ignores the insistent throb between his own legs—he can’t get the visuals of Harry on his knees in the bathroom or dully offering to let Louis fuck him out of his mind, and Harry keeps giving him this relieved, grateful look as they lie together and Louis doesn’t ask for reciprocation—until it quiets down and Harry begins to snore. Louis wraps himself, carefully, around his back, setting a palm over his warm belly, and sleeps for six more hours.

When he wakes, it’s to Harry crying out and pulling away from him, stumbling out of bed and locking himself in the bathroom for half an hour before he comes back, red-eyed and shaking. Louis had considered bolting for the couch, but he stays where he is, taking deep breaths, and when Harry returns, he opens his arms and lets Harry crawl in and hold him back. It seems to make him feel better, squeezing Louis this side of too-tight, and his heartbeat slows after an indeterminate amount of time.

“Y’okay?” Louis says, when he can’t hear a difference between their pulses. His thumb rubs a soft little wrinkled patch of scar tissue on Harry’s side, just below his ribs. He’s not sure what time it is; the light had crossed from the left side of the bed to the right while they were asleep and inches off the side now onto the floor. Louis is a little overly warm, but he doesn’t want to get up and move the fan closer; the room feels once more suspended in time and space, as if they keep rolling up to the edge of a precipice. Or many precipices. Louis sometimes feels like he’s just continually driving off a cliff with Harry, Thelma and Louise style, only they haven’t yet crashed and burned at the bottom; the world keeps shifting on its axis so that when they land they’re driving madly towards another cliff, and it’s giving him whiplash. He doesn’t know what to do now that that frenetic motion seems to have halted, as if the engine’s stalled or they’ve run out of gas. He can’t put this in neutral and push it along—not by himself, at least. He’s suddenly seized once more by the fear that Harry’s about to leave, to say _I can’t do this_ and walk out.

Instead, Harry kisses Louis’ knuckles—bruised, although he’s not sure from what—and leaves his lips there, just touching.

*

They spend a week in their bubble, gradually emerging into the rest of the house. Harry, to Louis’ excitement and annoyance all balled into one, gets along with Nick like a house on fire (he grimaces as soon as he thinks it, and keeps it to himself, but privately he thinks it’s actually sort of funny) and soon enough Louis finds himself wandering around while Harry and Nick talk about music, all this weird obscure British shit Louis’ never heard of. Harry used to go up to Manchester and Liverpool to go to concerts in his youth, apparently. That Louis finds this out by overhearing Harry telling Nick stings, even though he knows it’s irrational—he’s never really been jealous, and he knows it’s stupid now, but he can’t help it—but he tells himself he’s being petty, and that Harry tells him things, too, and that he’s grateful to be able to listen to them even when they’re difficult, which is often. Some of the things Harry says as if they’re no big deal make Louis have to close his eyes and count to ten while he wills away the desire to go down to Hell himself and rip some demons’ throats out. Some of them make him cry, and he knows these are only tiny pieces of a goddamn mosaic of agony that he can barely comprehend the scale of. And then Harry listens when Louis shares tiny little bits of his life, feeling stupid and oversensitive when he thinks about how insignificant they really are, compared, and Harry sternly tells him to shut up when he voices that. There’s a lot he’s not ready to talk about. The one time his dad came up Louis had an honest-to-god panic attack and had had to get in a cold shower wearing his shorts and t-shirt to shock himself out of it.

There isn’t a worst one, but Louis gets fixated, often, on how Harry died. Demon cruelty is expected, if more complicated than Louis used to think, people surprise him, still. The worst cases have always been the ones where it’s turned out, in fucking Scooby-Doo fashion, not to be anything supernatural at all, but regular old human brutality. So when Harry, haltingly, and in the course of multiple conversations, tells Louis that he got caught kissing a boy (awfully enough, named Louis) around the back of his school, and that, since it was such a tiny village, everyone knew within the week, and that a couple of those people had decided that disapproving stares and exclusion weren’t enough and had taken matters into their own hands and then left him, bleeding, in the street, and that when a young girl found him and pointed him out to her mother, the woman recognized him and screamed to her daughter to get away from him or she was going to get sick, waiting until she got home to phone for an ambulance, during which time Harry suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, Louis has to excuse himself to go dry-heave and sob in the bathroom for a few minutes before he can collect himself enough to be in the room again.

He’d sort of gotten, in theory, what it meant that Harry had grown up in a conservative part of England in the 80’s and early 90’s, but it’s different to hear that the paramedics, even, had hesitated and put on all kinds of unnecessary safety gear before helping him, not wanting to catch the fucking _gay plague_ , which Harry didn’t even have—not that it wouldn’t have been just as bad, if not worse, if he did. He finds himself thinking about it while running his fingers through Harry’s hair, subconsciously trying to feel for evidence (bumps, scars, anything), and has to stop because he gets nauseous. It’s the most he’s felt in a long, long time, and it’s exhausting, calling on emotional reserves he hasn’t in years, but he does it. They do it.

*

On the last day of August, Niall pokes his head in to say that him and Nick and Stasha are going out to get groceries, and to be good and not throw any keggers while they’re gone. Louis flips him off, grumbling at being woken up, and Harry laughs like Louis’ just said the most amazingly crafted joke ever. When the rumbling of their stomachs gets too insistent to ignore, they go downstairs.

There are still some cold cuts and the heels of a couple loaves of bread in the fridge; they make sandwiches, and, on opening the window and feeling the coolness of the gentle breeze, decide to go outside to eat. Niall’s vegetable patch is overgrown but thriving, and the line of sunflowers along the side of the house is ridiculously tall, their faces tilted up towards the yellow sunshine. Louis spots a cluster of honeysuckle bushes by the far fence, and he takes off in that direction. Harry follows, carrying both their sandwiches in one of his hands, and two sodas in his other. Louis lets himself go a little melty inside for just a moment when he thinks about the size of his hands, but it’s really nothing compared to the tiny, bemused smile on Harry’s face. That warms him head to toe.

“What are we doing here?” Harry asks, once they’ve reached the bushes. Louis flings down the blanket haphazardly, half of it bunched up. Harry, predictably, annoyingly, and beautifully, crouches to adjust it, setting the food and water down at the opposite corner. “I mean, it’s a nice spot, and all.”

“Honeysuckle,” Louis says, pointing. “The most important part of summer.”

Harry straightens up once he’s satisfied with the position of the blanket. “Okay,” he says, like he’s not following. “D’you just...look at it?”

“You’ve never had honeysuckle?” Louis says, incredulous. He reaches out to touch one of the soft white petals, trembling lightly in the breeze. There’s a bee a few yards away, sucking nectar and buzzing quietly.

“Hey,” Harry says, with an audible pout. “I was an indoor kid.”

“Were you, now?” Louis can see it. He smiles to himself at the thought of Harry as a child.

“I was,” Harry says. “Plus I did whatever Gemma said. Lots of Barbies.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Oh please,” he says, “like you didn’t love a good Barbie.”

“Maybe,” Harry hedges, dimples popping. “Mum tried to get Gems to give hers to charity when she was about twelve. I wasn’t having it.” There’s a slight wistfulness to his tone.

Louis hears it in his own voice, too. “Lottie had a few, too, but she was more into the plays. Bit of a tyrant about it.” He plucks the blossom he’s been playing with off the bush. “I had to be the prince so many times.”

Harry laughs. “I can see it,” he says. “You’d make a good prince.”

Louis rolls the flower between his fingers. “Thank you,” he says. “I like to think I got pretty good at it.” He pauses. “I wanted to be an actor, when I was little.”

“Hmm,” Harry says. “I wanted to be a bin man.”

Louis honest-to-god giggles, girlish and high, automatically clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle it. “You’re—you don’t mean a garbage man, do you? Please tell me you don’t mean a garbage man.”

“It’s a cool job,” Harry insists. “I used to get so excited when I saw the lorry—”

“You’re ridiculous,” Louis says. _I love you._ “Pick off a flower, c’mon.”

“Don’t rush me,” Harry grouses. He takes forever picking a blossom, like it’s imperative he choose the perfect one. Louis rolls his eyes and smiles. “Okay, what do I do now?”

“Pull off the bottom,” Louis instructs, demonstrating with his own flower, drawing out the fine white fiber carefully. Harry does the same. “Now, just...stick it in your mouth.” Harry snickers. “Oh my god,” Louis groans. “You’re a child.” He knows he sounds unbearably fond, and he doesn’t mind. He hopes Harry knows that he’s delighted by Harry’s blossoming silliness, the way it brings out the same in Louis. He sucks on the straw of his honeysuckle, smiling at the faint sweetness, and he watches, smile growing, as Harry, the same as he always does, sticks his tongue all the way out to set the stem on it before sucking it back in, face brightening in obvious pleasure that makes Louis glow inside, grateful to get to show him these small things and to enjoy them anew himself.

It takes him by surprise when Harry kisses him, tasting lightly of honeysuckle. The sweetness is so small, barely detectable, but it’s there, and Louis draws him closer, dropping to his knees on the blanket and bringing Harry down with him so they can kiss with the ground digging into their backs and the tail end of summer buzzing above and around them.

*

Louis’ cell phone is what brings a halt to their lazy, warm touching, and he groans, letting his head fall back against the ground. He can’t ignore it, much as he wants to, because no one ever calls him just for the Hell of it. Harry smiles and rolls off him to lie on his side next to Louis, head propped up by his arm bent at the elbow. He starts petting over Louis’ belly, which makes Louis glare at him. Fucker just grins bigger, dimples going deep, and Louis huffs and flips open his phone.

“Hello?” Liam’s voice is staticky, but it’s good to hear from him. Louis smiles.

“Hey Payno,” Louis says. “What’s shakin’?”

“You sound happy,” Liam says, and Louis can visualize his eyebrows arching towards his hairline and muffles a snort.

“Yeah,” he says, nonchalant. Harry arches an eyebrow at him. _What_ , Louis mouths, but he just gets that Cheshire cat grin, and Louis rolls his eyes, trying not to squirm at the slight tickle of the way Harry’s touching him. “What’s up? How’s your sister?”

“She’s good!” Liam says. “Really, really good. Um, so Niall told me what happened…”

Louis’ abdomen contracts away from Harry’s fingers when they dig in a little more. He slaps at the huge hand, mouthing _quit it_. “Uh huh.”

“Everything...okay?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, after a moment. He squeezes Harry’s wrist, feels the sharpness of the bone. He can’t resist the opportunity to dig his fingers into Harry’s armpits, making him squawk and snatch his hand away, laughing. “I think so.”

“Um,” Liam says, “so I think I found a case, if you’re interested. No worries if you’re not, I mean—”

Louis swallows. Here it is, the outside world intruding on the safe little bubble they’ve built. There are monsters outside these walls, as there always have and always will be, overwhelming and staggering, and they have to face them.

“Uh,” Louis manages, “can I call you back?”

“Sure, sure,” Liam says, gone a little tinny. “I’m going into a tunnel, I might—”

And just like that, the line goes dead, and Louis snaps the phone shut, tossing it on the ground. His heart’s beating faster, and not for a happy reason, like before. He’s got to figure out what the fuck to do now; he wants to want to just stay here with Harry but he’s already getting restless, can feel it growing from the core of him outward, but what if Harry wants something else, what if it’s all too much, what if he ruins everything—

“Hey,” Harry says, quietly, laying a hand across Louis’ frantically thumping heart. “What’s going on?”

Louis swallows. “Nothing,” he tries, and when Harry doesn’t humor him, he sighs. “Liam has a case,” he says.

“A hunt?”

Louis feels his nose wrinkle slightly, the word making him go a little cold. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll see if Niall knows someone else—”

“Why?” Harry fixes him with a look, his hand moving back to Louis’ stomach, like he can sense that that’s where the dread is concentrating. “You don’t want to hunt anymore?”

Louis frowns. “Not that, exactly.” He closes his eyes. “I don’t—this is what I’ve always done. I’m good at it. I like it when I get to help people.” He doesn’t say _I’m tired of pain and death_ , but he’s certain Harry would’ve felt that when he possessed him.

“But you don’t want to take this case?”

Louis squints. The sun’s just behind Harry’s head, making it look like he has a halo and shadowing his face so he’s inscrutable. He takes Louis’ breath away. “I don’t want to leave you,” Louis says.

“Why would you leave me?”

“You don’t want to hunt—”

“When did I say that?” Harry cuts him off, the slightest edge to his voice.

Louis shrugs. “It’s a hard life,” he says.

“And you think I can’t handle it?”

“No,” Louis says, “but you deserve…”

“What?”

“Normal,” Louis says. He winces. “Healthy.”

Harry laughs. “Not sure that’s a possibility for me,” he says. “That ship’s sailed.”

Louis clenches his jaw, and nods. He feels the same, and it’s galling to hear Harry say it, but it makes it feel a little more okay for Louis to feel like that. “For me, too,” he says. “I just…”

“What?”

“Not a lot of people would choose this life, is all.”

“‘S thanks to you I get a life at all,” Harry says, so, so quietly. “And I get to choose. I want to be with you. I want to...save people.”

“Hunt things.”

“The family business,” Harry says. Louis tenses, but lets it roll off his back, down through the blanket and into the ground, where it settles in the soil. They still haven’t talked about that; they haven’t talked about a lot, but they’ll get there.

For now, they stand, pack up the food and empty bottles and blanket, and walk back to the house, past the Camaro, who’s pretty filthy and looking a little sad. Louis ought to wash and wax her soon.

“Need to get gas,” Louis says, after they’ve thrown away their garbage. He doesn’t really, but he wants to drive. “Want to come with?”

As Louis puts the Camaro in reverse and breathes out at the familiar, comforting rumble of the engine, he glances to his right, at Harry in the passenger seat, his weird posture and crossed legs and bouncing knee. He’s nervous, making himself small like he doesn’t feel like he belongs here. _He does. He belongs here._ So Louis says, keeping his tone light, “If we’re going to hunt together, we’ll need a new catchphrase.”

Harry’s quiet for a while, but in the way where Louis can tell he’s thinking. “Liam called us the dream team,” he says, “back in Bend.”

The sun glares hard through the windscreen, and Louis flips the visor down so he can see the road in front of them, sparing a glance at the house in the rearview mirror. “Dream team,” Louis says. “I like that.” He rolls down his window so the wind whips through his hair. Harry turns on the radio, and Louis lets him.

* * *

 

The road's too long to mention —  
Lord, it's something to see! —  
laid down by the  
Good Intentions Paving Company,  
all the way to the thing  
we've been playing at, darling.  
I can see that you're wearing  
your staying-hat, darling.  
  
For the time being, all is well.  
Won't you love me a spell?  
This is blindness, beyond all conceiving,  
while behind us, the road is leaving,  
and leaving, and falling back  
like a rope gone slack.  
  
Well, I saw straightaway  
that the lay was steep,  
but I fell for you, honey,  
easy as falling asleep.  
And that, right there,  
is the course I keep.

[Joanna Newsom, "Good Intentions Paving Company"](http://joannanewsomlyrics.com/album/3-have-one-on-me/21-good-intentions-paving-company_as_sung/)

 

THE END


	11. Epilogue & Bonus Content

Not really a chapter, but if you click the "Run Like the Devil" series you can read the epilogue (~19.2k),  _Past Ain't Through With You_. In theory I could've just put it here but I'm persnickety about these things and it's more of a timestamp than a chapter 11, so. But I know a lot of people are subscribed here. Anyway. I'm gonna shut up now!

 

I also wanted to link to some fun bonus content/posts:

 

[Mix #1](http://8tracks.com/notcassi/it-s-a-deal)

[Mix #2](http://8tracks.com/klcp/run-like-the-devil)

[Chapter 1 illustration by gayjaylah](http://churchrat.tumblr.com/post/150184553825/gayjaylah-commission-i-did-for-churchrat)

[Chapter 1 illustration by me](http://churchrat.tumblr.com/post/153703749315/churchrat-freshly-determined-he-kicks-up)

[Moodboard by rated-l-for-larry](http://churchrat.tumblr.com/post/150919513810/rated-l-for-larry-moodboard-51-larry-run)

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so much for reading! If you are able, I would really love to hear people's thoughts/suggestions/criticisms/whatever, and if you liked it, tell a friend! There is likely to be a timestamp/epilogue coming up soon-ish, so stay tuned for that. 
> 
>  
> 
> [My tumblr.](http://churchrat.tumblr.com)  
> [Rebloggable post for this fic.](http://churchrat.tumblr.com/post/143407420900/fic-run-like-the-devil-hl-wip-ch-110-9k)  
> 


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